National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

An Environmental Justice and Health Forum Brings Together Grassroots Activists, Community Organizers, Regulators, and Researchers

As part of its mission to document and disseminate information about environmental justice and health inequities, a NIEHS-funded Environmental Health Sciences Center called THREE: Towards Health Resilience and Environmental Equity, located at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), hosted a day-long environmental health and justice tour in March 2024. The tour went to several communities in the San Joaquin Valley. In collaboration with local community groups and advocates, the visits fostered dialogue between community-academic partners, state and federal regulatory agencies, and NIEHS leaders, including Rick Woychik, Ph.D., Director of NIEHS. The tour helped facilitate relationships that may make a positive impact on community members’ health and address environmental health concerns.

The day began in the small, unincorporated communities of Cantua Creek and Lanare. These communities are classified by the state of California as Disadvantaged Communities, indicating that they are disproportionately affected by a combination of economic, health, and environmental burdens.

California’s San Joaquin Valley is a predominantly rural region with a rich, multicultural history, including serving as one of the birthplaces of the environmental justice and farmworker rights movements. It has a high proportion of low-income residents and is one of the most polluted regions in the country, experiencing high levels of toxic contamination in the air, water, and land, and notable health disparities including cancer, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory disease, and infant mortality.

Phoebe Seaton from Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA) and Nayamin Martinez from the Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) shared perspectives on the cumulative impacts of pesticide exposures, water and air pollution, and lack of access to health services. Residents provided testimony on their experiences of toxic exposures, climate change, and inadequate government response to their concerns.

Drinking Water Systems in Crisis

Groundwater contamination is widespread throughout the San Joaquin Valley. Common contaminants include nitrates from agricultural runoff; pesticides; and arsenic, which is naturally occurring but can be worsened by overpumping and drought.

Lanare and Cantua Creek exemplify both the depth and complexity of these challenges. Like similar unincorporated communities in the San Joaquin Valley, Lanare and Cantua Creek were established in the 1950s by Black and Mexican farmworkers who settled in these isolated rural locations lacking electricity, running water, and other basic infrastructure.

When wells and pipes were installed in the 1970s and 1980s, Lanare’s water was found to contain toxic levels of arsenic. Cantua Creek’s wells soon became contaminated with nitrates from agricultural runoff. After decades of community advocacy, an arsenic treatment plant was built in Lanare in 2007, only to close six months later due to a lack of operating funds. In 2019, two new deep wells provided the town with arsenic-free water. However, residents still don’t feel safe to drink the water, reporting that it smells bad and leaves a residue on sinks and toilets. In Cantua Creek, residents pay high prices for tap water imported from another water district. Despite being treated, the imported water is considered unsafe to drink, and residents often have to rely on the state for bottled drinking water. Residents have been waiting for new wells, facing repeated delays, uncertainty, and mounting water debt.

“We live forgotten, unseen, neglected, with contaminated water. We have been fighting over this for years," said a Cantua Creek resident during the tour. "We … can't even use it for cooking, we don't even want to bathe with it."

The Impact of Pesticide Exposure

Pesticide exposure was also discussed on the tour. Farms in the San Joaquin Valley use more pesticides than any other region in California, and racial and economic disparities in pesticide exposures are stark, with agricultural workers, rural residents, and children being particularly vulnerable. Pesticide exposure has been linked to a wide range of acute and chronic health issues.

A resident who attended the tour reflected, "They don't notify [us] about pesticides. I worked doing this, and I know at night is when they spray the most. All night, tons [of pesticides] on almonds, pistachios ... and no warning.”

In interactive rotating stations, advocates Ruben Rodriguez from CCEJN, Mariana Alvarenga from LCJA, and Angel Garcia and Raul Garcia from Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) shared their work on key environmental justice and health issues such as pesticides, drinking water quality, air pollution, and climate change. In addition, UC Davis researchers discussed their work on air quality policy (Jonathan London), portable environmental health sensors (Nicholas Kenyon, Mitchell McCartney, Cristina Davis), utilizing citizen science approaches to test well water (Vida Sanchez, Jasqueline Peña), and using backpacks to sample pesticide exposure (Deborah Bennett collaborating with CPR).

Roundtable Discussion

The event at Lanare concluded with a roundtable discussion moderated by EHSC's Community Engagement Core faculty director, Jonathan London. The dialogue highlighted community environmental health concerns, requests of the regulatory agencies, and community research priorities to support and inform advocacy.

All parties expressed the importance of continuing dialogue particularly to bring attention to cumulative impacts – a goal that would necessitate an improved inter-agency and community collaboration.

As one regulator said, "We know you need answers. [And we realize that] 'sorry, this is another agency' [is not a good answer]. We need to stop working in silos.”

Members of the Lanare community urged the organizers to not let the forum be a one-time event, and the UC Davis team has committed to keep the conversation going through regular virtual meetings with agencies and scientists.

A Warehouse Boom in Fresno

On the way back through Fresno, participants were joined by Veronica Garibay (LCJA), who highlighted increasing industrialization in South-Central Fresno. A boom in warehouses, distribution centers, and factories has led to severe air pollution, including toxic diesel particulate matter. Advocacy groups are pushing for greater oversight of the environmental and health impacts of industrial development, as well as buffer zones between warehouses and daycares, schools, and hospitals.

The event ended with the leadership of NIEHS and the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center THREE expressing their appreciation for the community residents and advocates for sharing their expertise and experiences and for the regulators for committing to address community issues.

The center wants to recognize original inspiration by Tanya Khemet (former co-director of the UC Davis Community Engagement Core) and the organizing brilliance of Nayamin Martinez (CCEJN). The PEPH newsletter team would like to acknowledge the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center staff members Clarisse Cespedes and Shosha Capps, and community partners who contributed significantly to this article.