One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This archival content was originally written for and published on KPCC.org. Keep in mind that links and images may no longer work — and references may be outdated.
Safe Drinking Water Act's 40th year offers new opportunities for helping Coachella Valley
Forty years ago, we didn't have a national standard for safe drinking water. A federal law changed that. But there's still plenty of work to do to protect drinking water around Southern California against newly discovered pollutants.
(
Photo by Ulisse Albiati via Flickr Creative Commons
)
Listen
0:51
Safe Drinking Water Act's 40th year offers new opportunities for helping Coachella Valley
In 1974, lawmakers decided tap water in the United States should be safe to drink. Until then, we didn’t have a national standard for drinking water. Those reports your local provider gives you about water quality? They didn’t exist.
For 40 years, under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, the federal government has been providing money to municipal systems to keep water free from a growing array of pollutants. That work is incomplete in small towns that rely on groundwater, particularly in the central valley and in Southern California’s High Desert.
In the Coachella Valley, says the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mike Montgomery, “Arsenic’s a naturally occurring compound,” and an inconvenient one. As a result, small communities are “trying to find aquifers that have lower amounts of arsenic,” Montgomery says. “It’s often difficult in regions that have minerology that just has higher levels of arsenic.”
Coachella systems are working on filtering arsenic out, but Montgomery says clean, reliable water requires ongoing investment.
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
