Salinas

Salinas, CA — Recently, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (“CRLA”) and a coalition of environmental justice leaders and advocates (“the Coalition”) delivered a scientific literature review to the State Water Resources Control Board (“State Water Board”) on the health and economic risks of nitrate-contaminated drinking water for communities across California. The groups are urging the State Water Board to act quickly and require Regional Water Boards to adopt enforceable limits on fertilizer to address the growing public health crisis.

CRLA commemorated the Supreme Court victory that banned the use of “El Cortito” 50 years ago, a short-handled hoe that forced agricultural workers to stoop over all day long. This was a victory on many fronts – agricultural workers’ health, the farmworker rights movement, and a critical moment in CRLA’s legal advocacy and community lawyering.

Latino community groups in California's Central Coast region filed a Civil Rights Complaint with the U.S. EPA against the State Water Resources Control Board to address racially disproportionate impacts of water pollution from nitrogen fertilizers used by the agricultural industry. 

The State Water Board’s September 2023 decision has statewide policy and downstream impacts and represents the state government’s unwillingness to confront decades of pollution by the agricultural industry—despite rising nitrate contamination and resulting lack of clean, safe, affordable drinking water for many communities.