The History
In 2004, attorney Laurel Firestone received an Equal Justice Works Fellowship to start the Rural Poverty Water Project at the Delano office of the Center on Race Poverty and the Environment (“CRPE”). Firestone teamed with Susana De Anda, then CRPE’s community organizer, to help low-income communities of color in California’s San Joaquin Valley address drinking water issues.
Under the auspices of CRPE, this team successfully helped many individual communities obtain safe, clean, and affordable water.
- Mothers in Ducor forced their water board to clean up residential water that was black and smelled like sewage.
- Tooleville residents banded together to create their own water board and secure the funding necessary to drill a new well.
- After nearly a decade of receiving nitrate-contaminated water three months out of the year, Tonyville families convinced the state to issue a compliance order requiring that their water provider deliver potable water year-round.
- And Cutler-Orosi residents not only forced the rescission of unconstitutional ordinances discriminating against extended families – with literally 200 residents participating at local water board meetings and press conferences – but have pushed for language access policies that allow the mostly Spanish-speaking community to effectively participate in board meetings.
