The ACLU Foundation of Northern California has been working on improving language access to water system information so that people will know if their water is free of toxic contaminants.
By law, all water systems are required to send out annual consumer confidence reports that notify residents about their drinking water quality.
These water reports do three important things: (1) let people know about possible drinking water contamination, (2) describe any health and safety violations, and (3) provide notice about upcoming meetings where people can speak directly to decision-makers about their water quality.
However, nearly 7 million people in California, more than any other state, have a limited ability to read, write, speak, or understand English.
Each year, it provides a water report template on its agency website, for use by systems throughout the state and which smaller water systems rely on.
The sentence, loosely translated, reads: This report contains very important information about your drinking water.
Providing an English-only template harms already vulnerable communities by limiting their access to important information about their water.
Safe Water is a Human Right In our letter, we asked the SWRCB to provide translated templates that reflect California’s diversity — and they listened.
We’re proud to report that 11 public water systems throughout Fresno, Madera, and Tulare counties are now using these translated templates.
Safe water is a human right, and we will continue working to expand language access across California.

Advocacy Groups Urge Public to Help Save Environmental Funding in Rhode Island Budget.
Some 20 environmental groups are imploring their supporters to contact their members of the House ahead of its marathon budget vote scheduled for June 22 and ask them to restore $12.5 million to Rhode Island’s energy-efficiency program.
Gas and electric customers pay for energy-efficiency programs when they pay their utility bills.
In a letter, the coalition asks legislators not to defund a flourishing program.
“A cut of $12.5 million from our state’s ratepayer-funded energy efficiency programs will hinder growth and significantly impact savings for residents and businesses.
Energy efficiency is Rhode Island’s ‘first fuel’ and its lowest-cost energy resource.” Save The Bay wants the House to add two jobs proposed in Gov.
The environmental group also wants the House to restore $5 million “scooped” from the Narragansett Bay Commission to the General Fund.
Farm events.
Land trusts worry that the legislation allows this new class of “secondary agricultural operations” to trump local planning and zoning boards.
The Land Trust Council and the Rhode Island Farm Bureau say business interests crafted the bill without input from farmers.

WASHINGTON – While the Trump administration orders the EPA do less to protect Americans from dirty air and water, and Congress threatens to dismantle the agency altogether, Food & Water Watch and 34 advocacy organizations are demanding that the agency do more to protect communities from factory farms.
Today, the groups filed a legal petition with Scott Pruitt’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), citing its duty under the law to hold concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs or factory farms) accountable for their water pollution, which threatens public health and the environment.
The petition asks EPA to overhaul its regulations for how CAFOs are regulated under the federal Clean Water Act and its permitting program, noting that current rules fail to prevent pollution and protect communities.
But the EPA is legally bound to protect communities from pollution, and we intend to hold the agency accountable for doing its job.” Clean water advocates have experienced Pruitt’s weak record on CAFO pollution in Oklahoma.
“I have seen beautiful rivers turn green as a result of runoff from CAFOs,” said Earl Hatley, Oklahoma’s Grand Riverkeeper.
The vast quantities of manure generated from CAFOs are typically disposed of, untreated, on cropland, where it can seep or run off to pollute waterways and drinking water sources.
“That’s why we’re standing with other organizations from around the U.S. who care about social justice to demand that Scott Pruitt’s EPA take action to ensure that regulations for factory farms protect the interests of all communities, not Big Ag.” “Even in Wisconsin, where all CAFOs are required to have Clean Water Act permits, water contamination from mega-dairies is a widespread and growing threat to public health.
It also asks the EPA to require large corporate integrators that control CAFO practices to obtain permits, instead of just their contract producers, who currently bear the burden of following permits and managing waste.
The petition further asks EPA to strengthen permits in several ways, including: requiring pollution monitoring and reporting, as is required of virtually all other industries; restricting waste disposal in order to better protect water quality; and regulating CAFO discharges of a wider range of pollutants than permits currently address, including the heavy metals and pharmaceuticals found in industrial livestock waste.
Lenient laws and regulations have made Iowa a haven for corporate polluters.