$29 million obtained for clean water projects in eastern Coachella Valley

Nearly $30 million has been allocated in the past week for major infrastructure to start to bring safe, reliable water to residents in the east Coachella Valley, where thousands of residents live in scores of mobile home parks with toxic water wells and open sewage pits.

But at least $180 million more is needed to build out a Coachella Valley Water District master plan to connect more than 100 mobile home parks and worker camps to reliable plumbing systems, many on Torres Martinez tribal lands. And a leading environmental justice advocate says there are hundreds more east valley parks not included in the plan that likely have serious water contamination, too.

Still, the new pots of funding are a welcome step forward for areas where low income farmworkers and others have endured arsenic-laced, foul-smelling drinking water and other woes for years, as The Desert Sun recently explained in an in-depth report.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted unanimously to allocate $6.059 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to CVWD for a new Mecca area water treatment plant, to replace a non-functional arsenic filtering plant and provide hookups for 600 to 700 new affordable housing units.

"Too often we do have folks that turn on the water faucet and it smells rotten or it's not clear. Too often we have people who have to come to the store ... for gallons of water to take a shower. Too often we have people take a shower and sometimes get skin rashes from the water," said Fourth District Supervisor V. Manuel Perez, who represents the area and made the motion to earmark the funds.

"It's a very real issue, and it's been a very real issue for decades, and it's not acceptable," he added. "But I'm very proud of the fact that ... once again, we've worked together."

Board Vice Chair Kevin Jeffries said in the past, rural constituents in his First District had suffered similar well contamination and protracted clean-up efforts.

"The frustration is in a country with such enormous wealth, it takes so much support and time to get the funds to do those necessary infrastructures for essential, basic living. It's just very frustrating, and I applaud Supervisor Perez for sticking to it," said Jeffries.

In an even bigger move, the State Water Resources Control Board voted 4-0 on April 19 to approve a $23.4 million grant for a major CVWD project. Those funds and $7 million secured from the 2021 state budget by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, will pay for "critical backbone infrastructure" — namely a pipeline along Avenue 66 to connect the St. Anthony Mobile Home Park and a few others within the next few years to existing CVWD supply.

The pipeline could also ultimately help the water district fold dozens more smaller systems into its operations in coming years, and will provide more reliable service to existing customers in Mecca, North Shore and Bombay Beach.

Members of the state water board last week praised CVWD for pushing hard to implement California's 2012 Human Right to Water law.

"CVWD is the epitome of leadership around achieving the human right to water in the state and bringing that to a reality," said board member Laurel Firestone. "You are the reason I have hope that we will be able to achieve this in our state."

The funds come atop $2.7 million in federal funds obtained in March for the area via the efforts of U.S. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-La Quinta, bringing total funds for east valley projects to date to $40 million.

"There's a lot of funding that has been created, and we are pursuing it, so I do feel momentum is building," said CVWD Vice President Castulo Estrada in an email.

Estrada represents the east valley and spent part of his childhood in Oasis, where water and sewage woes have long existed. He has spearheaded the board's efforts to bring modern-day infrastructure to the area. The state "gave us a big down payment that will help us build a good portion of the needed infrastructure."

He added: "The need as I see it is to bring safe and affordable water and sewer service to the disadvantaged communities in the eastern Coachella Valley. Everybody in the Coachella Valley deserves clean water, it is a basic human right."

Noting the state board vote was unanimous he said, "It's truly a milestone."

In response to questions about the far larger sums that are needed to complete the district's master plan, which he has spearheaded as the head of a task force, he said: "Building $200 million worth of infrastructure does not happen overnight. There is planning, coordination, environmental impact studies, funding and construction. We look forward to continuing to work with our federal, state and county partners and the Torres Martinez tribe to secure additional funding for these communities."

The number of parks needing help is growing. Since December, U.S. EPA Region 9 inspectors have cited seven more parks where they found water containing arsenic levels above federal legal limits — even from a faucet equipped with a filter — and thousands of times above state public health guidelines. The inspectors also cited a park where feces, urine and other waste were being piped directly from mobile homes into open air cesspools, in violation of federal law.

In an email, EPA spokeswoman Julia Giarmoleo said the emergency orders they issued require each mobile home park to retain a technical provider who will work with the federal agency to carry out the requirements. The seven mobile home parks have all retained Pueblo Unido Community Development Corporation, and "EPA meets every other week with PUCDC to discuss ongoing compliance ... including the schedule for installing point of use devices, the delivery of bottled water, sampling and monitoring."

She noted all the mobile home parks are receiving alternative water deliveries at no additional cost to residents — per the orders, each resident must receive one gallon a day of clean water. A contractor is visiting the cesspools at Valladares Mobile Home Park this week to provide cost estimates to close them, and EPA will follow up. The owners of Valladares continue to work with a contractor to backfill the cesspools and install an approved individual wastewater treatment system, she said.

EPA staff and contractors plan to conduct additional area drinking water sampling in May, covering all agency regulated contaminants, to be used as a baseline for all systems they oversee.

Estrada with CVWD said: "We have folks from EPA reaching out to us to help figure out how to incorporate systems they are responsible for regulating into our master plan and how to secure funding. We are also exploring with the Torres Martinez tribe to see if they can access funding at the federal level."

Hundreds more parks likely contaminated

Many of the parks with contaminated wells are on Torres Martinez lands. And there are likely hundreds more parks with arsenic and other toxics in the east valley, said Nataly Escobedo Garcia, water policy director for the Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability. The group's east Coachella Valley staff have mapped about 500 parks with no county or state permits, and are in the process of driving to each to check water and sewage supplies and needs. CVWD's master list only includes parks with permits, she said.

She and others with the Leadership Counsel praised the new funding as a limited step forward. They told the state board and CVWD that they want a written commitment from the water district that an estimated 35 parks total will be connected to the Avenue 66 pipeline, not just the few in the current project.

"We obviously support the expansion of the infrastructure," she said. "One of our concerns with Avenue 66 is that it is only going to open up consolidation for three parks, to connect them to CVWD water. There is the potential to expand it to Pierce (Street), which would then open up the possibility to consolidate 35 small water systems, to connect them to CVWD water."

"We need to see something in writing that commits CVWD to that expansion," she said. She added: "We still have concerns about the capacity of the east Coachella Valley to grow, to handle the expansion of water and wastewater infrastructure, when we still have all these surf parks and golf courses being put forth."

CVWD spokesman Scott Burritt said in an email, "Our commitment to our federal, state and local government partners has been to complete all the projects as they help us secure funding."

He said CVWD also encourages the Leadership Counsel to share information on hundreds of additional parks that may have issues at an upcoming meeting of the Disadvantaged Communities Infrastructure Task Force, set up to try to get water and sewage to area residents.

Can $341 million in reserve funds be tapped?

Until this month, the east valley master water and sewage plans had languished in recent years, even as the wealthy district amassed and started to spend more than $500 million in reserve funds on unrelated projects. This fiscal year, the district has $341 million in reserve funds, though they have purchased bonds and taken on other debt.

CVWD lawyers say Proposition 218, passed by voters in 1996, prohibits the agency from spending current ratepayers' funds to bring low-income potential customers online. But state water experts note there is language in the law that allows existing ratepayers to vote to approve the use of such funds for future customers.

Chuck Parker, co-chair of the Salton Sea Coalition, said the groups ' members will discuss this weekend possibly demanding that CVWD hold such a vote. Escobedo Garcia with the Leadership Counsel agreed "there is a way to get around the Prop. 218 issue."

But she said such votes, which require more than 50% of all ratepayers' approval, can be logistically daunting and tough to win.

"Let's be honest. CVWD's customer base also includes a very affluent customer base that is not necessarily concerned about the east Coachella Valley."

Estrada did not respond to a question on a possible Proposition 218 vote, but stressed in his email that he's not giving up on continuing to find funds for clean water and plumbing. He ran for the CVWD board in 2014 on a platform to help his childhood neighbors and others in the area.

"I decided to be part of CVWD to be helpful and I think we've been doing that. We've done a tremendous amount of work in recent years," he said.

He added, "projects like these bring much needed infrastructure to the eastern Coachella Valley and allow for improved health of residents, future economic growth and affordable housing development in this area."