Five years later, the reality for hundreds of communities throughout the state is they have tap water that’s too contaminated to drink and no money to clean it up.
According to data from the state’s Water Resources Control Board, 700,000 Californians living in nearly 300 mostly rural and economically disadvantaged communities throughout the state have water that doesn’t meet safe drinking water standards.
Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel), along with an unusual coalition of environmentalists and farmers, says the solution to this problem is Senate Bill 623, which would establish a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund subsidizing the operation and maintenance costs of cleanup efforts in small communities.
Most water customers would see a $1 dollar fee tacked onto their water bill each month.
But to the town’s residents, the small water treatment plant is a stinging reminder they’ve been left behind.
The plant, completed about a decade ago with $1.3 million of grant funding obtained by the community, was supposed to clean the town’s water, which has some of the highest levels of arsenic in the state.
“So many people have failed Lanare,” Garibay said.
“Even if the community wanted to, we can’t afford to treat the water,” said Isabel Solorio, a Lanare resident who helped create a community group to advocate on the town’s behalf.

An Indonesian Supreme Court ruling has ordered Jakarta to end one of the world’s largest water privatization schemes, and the capital city is now scrambling to take control of its waterworks.
Jakarta’s water utility was privatized 20 years ago in the last years of the Suharto military dictatorship, when the former president awarded contracts to two joint ventures, one of which included his son’s company.
The coalition won its case in the Jakarta District Court in 2015, but it took two more years for the Supreme Court to uphold its constitutionality.
The prevalence of such wells is one reason Jakarta is one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world.
Thames Water partnered with Suharto’s son’s company.
But Suharto did not award those contracts in a vacuum. The World Bank had been strongly encouraging the government to privatize its utilities at the time.

The Environmental Protection Agency has hired contractors to repair fencing around a federally designated, hazardous waste site and “local security is stationed at the wells to prevent access,” the agency said, after reports surfaced that residents — desperate for drinking water — were taking water from a toxic well.
The utility was reportedly unaware that the site was contaminated until CNN contacted it with Superfund maps.
But almost a month after Hurricane Maria struck the island, more than 35 percent of the island’s residents still lack access to safe drinking water.
“It’s been nearly one month since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, and yesterday, official numbers on drinking water access inexplicably declined from 72 percent to 65 percent,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement Wednesday.
Removal sites require immediate, short-term responses to protect people from immediate threats posed by hazardous waste sites but have not been designed as Superfund sites. The EPA said late Tuesday it has successfully assessed a total of 28 Superfund sites or removal sites in Puerto Rico.
A month after Maria, 82% of Americans in Puerto Rico have no power, 35% no water.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) noted, “a month after Maria, 82 percent of Americans in Puerto Rico have no power, 35 percent no water.

The Environmental Protection Agency has hired contractors to repair fencing around a federally designated, hazardous waste site and “local security is stationed at the wells to prevent access,” the agency said, after reports surfaced that residents — desperate for drinking water — were taking water from a toxic well.
The utility was reportedly unaware that the site was contaminated until CNN contacted it with Superfund maps.
But almost a month after Hurricane Maria struck the island, more than 35 percent of the island’s residents still lack access to safe drinking water.
“It’s been nearly one month since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, and yesterday, official numbers on drinking water access inexplicably declined from 72 percent to 65 percent,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement Wednesday.
Removal sites require immediate, short-term responses to protect people from immediate threats posed by hazardous waste sites but have not been designed as Superfund sites. The EPA said late Tuesday it has successfully assessed a total of 28 Superfund sites or removal sites in Puerto Rico.
A month after Maria, 82% of Americans in Puerto Rico have no power, 35% no water.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) noted, “a month after Maria, 82 percent of Americans in Puerto Rico have no power, 35 percent no water.

Specifically, the Oslo Accords called for the creation of a Joint Water Committee (JWC) during an interim period before the final status negotiations, comprised of equal number of members from Israel and the Palestinian Authority, whose functions would include the coordinated management of water resources and water and sewage systems in the West Bank.3 Oslo II, Article 40 on water and sewage recognized Palestinian water rights in the West Bank and the need to develop additional water supply.
Research on environmental peacebuilding has found that the inclusion of natural resources such as water in a peace agreement, combined with the creation of a joint management institution, can help build trust among former adversaries and provide a formal institutional structure for addressing water shortages.4 Joint management institutions like the JWC can facilitate the sharing of information about water resources and encourage donor activity in the water sector to bolster the peace process. Both the US and European countries have supported collaborative projects to share data and undertake joint scientific research, alongside providing foreign assistance for water and sanitation projects in the Palestinian territories.
A 2009 World Bank report on Palestinian water sector development concluded that "by regional standards, Palestinians have the lowest access to fresh water resources. Protracted conflict between Israel and Hamas (that has ruled Gaza since 2007) has led to a deterioration in Gaza’s water supply.

High lead levels were found in the drinking water of 24 York Region schools in 2016.
While Sutton District High School didn’t test as high as the Richmond Hill school, it failed 17 of its 20 tests with results ranging from 46 PPB to 10 PPB from July to September in 2016.
“We take action to remediate the problem immediately when exceedances occur,” YRDSB environmental safety officer Kori Zsigmond said.
If there is any question about water quality, the taps are bagged and sealed to prevent use, bottled water is provided and parents will be notified.
According to Health Canada, the toxicity of lead has been extensively documented in humans, based on blood lead levels. The strongest effect of exposure documented is in children and reductions in intelligence quotient (IQ) scores.
While 10 PPB or under is considered acceptable lead levels in drinking water across the province, organizations like the World Health Organization warns that any lead exposure is too much.
Standing and flushed water are tested.

“There are times the colour of the water is yellow or orange, and in cases of heavy rains, it is translucent in colour. PUC water is also ‘hard water’ with high levels of Ca2+ (Calcium ions) which eventually results in kidney stones,” one person said.
Although the population of Seychelles has access to potable water, tap water is seen as unsafe for direct consumption according to the posts on Facebook.
Another suggested that “PUC should publish results of water testing per district on a weekly basis” which will facilitate the purchase of water filters that can be used at home.
This causes the water to react to the plastic, becoming a health hazard to the public.
Speaking to SNA Serge Durup, owner of Eau Val Riche- a mineral water bottling company, said, “it is the distributor who exposes the water to the sun if the extent exposure is taking place.

We saw many of your reports and others of people still three weeks out from the storm who are still drinking from streams and creeks.
How are people getting water now?
What’s concerning, William, is that three weeks after the storm and at least a week after the allegations first surfaced that people might be trying to drink from toxic wells at what’s known as Superfund sites, the governor of Puerto Rico is still saying, we’re looking into it and telling people to stay out of rivers where sewage may be spilling into the river.
The other scenarios are people right now who are drinking from streams and creeks and rivers who have no water filters, who have nothing, right?
DAVID BEGNAUD: The two men running the ship told us that nearly 87 percent of the ship is empty.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the other pieces of reporting that you did that was very early in the story was this backlog of supplies trapped in container ships on the ports in Puerto Rico.
Can you tell us, are they getting to where they need to be throughout the island?
So, those were private companies that had brought in these shipping containers, paid for the supplies, but couldn’t move them because their truck drivers were either at home, because the home had been destroyed, or the road was impassable.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: David Begnaud, CBS News, thank you so much for your reporting.

Puerto Rico is still devastated by Hurricane Maria three weeks later. News reports revealed that the victims were given water from potentially contaminated sites. According to workers with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Puerto Rican water utility workers were seen distributing water that they got from the Dorado groundwater contamination site, an area that was designated as part of the United States’ federal initiative to clean up dangerous waste last fall.
The EPA is gathering more information about the quality of water from the wells associated with our Dorado groundwater contamination site, as well as other Superfund sites in Puerto Rico. While some of these wells are sometimes used to provide drinking water, the EPA is concerned that people could be drinking water that may be contaminated, depending on the well. We are mindful of the paramount job of protecting people’s health, balanced with people’s basic need for water.
Since the story broke, Democratic representative Bennie Thompson penned a letter on Saturday to the secretary of Homeland Security, Elaine Duke.
Reports of Puerto Ricans waiting hours to receive potentially contaminated water that could have long-term health consequences is beyond disturbing.

Nearly one month after Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico, experts and officials tasked with the island’s recovery efforts worry that the environmental impact of the storm could be unprecedented in its breath and complexity.
“People in the U.S. can’t comprehend the scale and scope of what’s needed,” ecologist Drew Koslow explained in a new AP investigation into the island’s rebuilding progress.
As of last week, EPA officials confirmed to the AP that they still had not been able to inspect five of the island’s 18 hazardous Superfund sites, despite reports that Puerto Ricans had begun drinking potentially contaminated water from those areas. In addition, the island is home to dozens more toxic dump sites, and, per a 2016 EPA report, had 29 operating landfills “the majority of which are beyond capacity.
In addition to the hazards posed by storm-damaged superfund sites, many of Puerto Rico’s sewer treatment plants were knocked offline following the hurricane, leading to sewage and waste seeping into natural water supplies, including a waterway that empties into one of the capital city of San Juan’s main reservoirs.
“We’re not going anywhere near it,” resident Edwin Felix said to the AP.
The result is an island full of environmentally catastrophic time bombs, all of which have created a potentially perfect storm of contamination.
“I just wish we had more resources to deal with it,” EPA deputy regional administrator Catherine McCabe told the AP.
Despite an exponential leap in the number of EPA staff on the island in recent weeks (45 people in the two weeks after the storm has nearly doubled to 85 as of this past Sunday) the full scale of Puerto Rico’s environmental crisis is still being determined as more sites are inspected.
“I think this will be the most challenging environmental response after a hurricane that our country has ever seen,” former EPA administrator Judith Enck told the AP.