Pollution, Poverty and People of Color: Don't Drink the Water

Like a growing number of Californians, Latino residents of East Orosi are paying for water that's not fit to drink

Tomas Ovalle

Special Report: Pollution, Poverty, People of Color Communities across the US face environmental injustices

Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the Special Report

EAST OROSI, Calif. Jessica Sanchez sits on the edge of her seat in her mothers kitchen, hands resting on her bulging belly. Eight months pregnant, shes excited about the imminent birth of her son. But shes scared too.

A few feet away, her mother, Bertha Dias, scrubs potatoes with water she bought from a vending machine. She wont use the tap water because its contaminated with nitrates.

Every day, Dias, 43, heads to the fields to pick lemons or oranges, lugging a ladder so she can reach the treetops. She often skips lunch to save money for the $17.50 she needs each week to fill jugs with vending-machine water.

Four years ago, the family learned that it had nitrates in its drinking water, which Sanchez drank as a little girl. She started speaking out about her towns toxic water when she discovered that nitrates can cause blue baby syndrome, a potentially fatal blood disorder that cuts off an infants oxygen supply.

Now it really hits me, she said, because now its my baby.

Sanchez, 18, who graduated from high school last year, lives in East Orosi, a square parcel carved out of 160 acres of land in Tulare County surrounded by orchards in the shadow of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Fewer than 500 people, nearly all Latino, live in this long-neglected town with no sidewalks, street lights, parks or playgrounds. More than half live below the poverty level.

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Pollution, Poverty and People of Color: Don't Drink the Water