Report slams water agencies' developments

Environmental group says projects destroy poor, native ways of life

By VIC POLLARD, Californian Sacramento Bureau


August 17th, 2005

SACRAMENTO -- Massive water projects have protected California's cities and farms from droughts, but they have left many minorities and low-income residents suffering from too little water or too much pollution, according to a report issued Wednesday by an environmental group.

Another example cited in the report is the influx of mega-dairies, driven out of the Chino Basin by the crackdown on water pollution there, to towns like heavily Latino Wasco, which seem powerless to block them.

The report contends that powerful water agencies and government regulators neglect or harm ethnic and low-income communities by failing to protect them from pollution and blocking them from decision-making processes.

"Water is the lifeblood of California communities; sucking it away from native tribes and Latino farmworkers will only dry up their local economies, their rivers, their fisheries, their farmland and their cultural connections," said Alisha Deen, an author who contributed to the report.

At a news conference in Sacramento, one of several around the state called to release the report, officials said they do not have specific legislative proposals to remedy the problems.

However, the report called for more water conservation by farms and cities to reduce consumption and greater involvement in the decision-making process by minorities and low-income people affected by water policies.

Officials of the Kern County Water Agency, one of the big agencies that benefit from water projects, did not respond to a request for comment.

The coalition is made up of a number of environmental and human rights groups, officials said, and the report was funded by grants from charitable organizations.