Have written this same post before, basically, but it's worth writing again because Mexico:
Like most children, the students at Stone Corral Elementary School here rejoice when the bell rings for recess and delight in christening a classroom pet.But while growing up in this impoverished agricultural community of numbered roads and lush citrus orchards, young people have learned a harsh life lesson: “No tomes el agua!”--
“Don’t drink the water!”Seville, with a population of about 300, is one of dozens of predominantly Latino unincorporated communities in the Central Valley plagued for decades by contaminated drinking water. It is the grim result of more than half a century in which chemical fertilizers, animal wastes, pesticides and other substances have infiltrated aquifers, seeping into the groundwater and eventually into the tap. An estimated 20 percent of small public water systems in Tulare County are unable to meet safe nitrate levels, according to a United Nations representative.
You really have to wonder how much longer this crap continues, and how much worse it needs to get, before farm towns like Seville start petitioning international relief agencies like UNESCO for potable water since it's obvious that they can't rely on Sacramento or Washington for assistance. This problem has existed in the Central Valley forever, and it doesn't seem as though anyone in positions of authority in this state will do anything to fix it. Oh well, lemons to Lemon Pledge®, and all that.
---Baron V
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