The White House cancels $ 20 million for clean water in rural California contaminated by pesticides | California

For decades, thousands of residents of the California agricultural heart could not use their wells because the water was too contaminated by pesticides. In December, the Biden administration intervened with a long -awaited subsidy of $ 20 million to provide drinking water, improve municipal sources and relieve the region’s financial and health burden.

The Trump administration has just removed the money.

Donald Trump’s environmental protection agency (EPA) has described the subsidy a “unnecessary Dei program”, although defenders say that this decision is an act of cruelty. Drinking water in certain parts of the County of Monterey region, which produces largely strawberries, has not been sure for decades because it has been contaminated by narcotic levels of highly toxic pesticide ingredients that threaten the health of agricultural workers and others.

The decision to draw the money was “unfair,” said Maraid Jimenez, spokesperson for Community Water Center, who helped manage the subsidy.

“People agree that everyone needs drinking water in complete safety, so to have a grant help this for a canceled rural community – it makes no sense for us,” said Jimenez. “The drinking water crisis here is only getting worse, and, beyond our shock, we try to mobilize to find a solution.”

Funding, as well as money from the State of California, would have improved the quality of drinking water for around 5,500 people, or thanks to improvements to the municipal infrastructure, either by connecting contaminated wells to the municipal lines.

The aquifer in the major-Spanish rural communities of the County of Monterey, which is around 50 miles (80 km) south of San Jose, is largely contaminated by the 1,2,3-TCP, a pesticide ingredient and a carcinogen banned in 40 countries that persist for decades in the soil and the groundwater. In many cases, the levels of 1.2,3-TCP in the wells have proven to exceed the limits of the state and the EPA health guidelines for drinking water. The 1,2.3-TCP can also evaporate and create toxic smoke in the shower, and is linked to the damage of the liver, kidneys and reproduction.

Wells also often contain high levels of arsenic hexavale chrome and nitrates. Everyone is carcinogens and the latter can cause a “blue baby syndrome”, a condition in young children who makes their skin become blue when toxin penetrates their blood circulation and restricts the flow of oxygen.

Residents had to buy water jugs or use state aid to buy them in the past 30 years. Among them, Marcela, a mother of three children who have lived in the region for about 10 years. She and her husband are strawberry pickers, and refused to provide her surname for fear of reprisals from the federal government.

Marcela said that the family, who lives near Moss Landing, spends about $ 450 every three weeks on water jugs of 5 gallons. The well on the property it rents is broken. She and her owners, an elderly couple who live at home and whom she takes care of, does not have enough money to repair it. Even if they could, well water would, in all likelihood, be too contaminated to be used.

They learned at the end of 2024 from the plan to connect their property to a neighboring water district within three years, which would have attenuated major stress and a financial burden. Then they learned that the Trump administration had canceled funding.

“This is a new devastator for us,” said Marcela via a translator. “We need a water emergency.”

Marcela’s family is protected by bottled water, but some in the region “did not know that they could not drink or cook with tap water, so they would use it,” said Mayra Hernandez, head of community advocacy with Community Water Center. What this has mean for their health is not clear.

The education of residents on risks involved that the staff of the community water center strikes the doors. The challenges of bringing the word out in the region, where there are a large number of workers who do not speak English and who live in isolation of information sources, underlines how essential it is to connect the properties to clean water.

The EPA grant, as well as state financing, would have connected more than 1,000 residents with dangerous wells to municipal lines. He would also have provided financial support to the municipal systems necessary to extend the supply of water and make improvements.

In a statement sent by email, the EPA said: “Perhaps the Biden-Harris administration should not have forced its radical program to waste Dei programs and” environmental justice “preferring the main mission of the EPA to protect human health and the environment.”

The cuts are part of the wider attack of the Trump administration aimed at killing about $ 2 billion for environmental and climatic justice initiatives made available thanks to the Inflation reduction law (IRA) which would reduce pollution and improve the resilience of communities to the effects of climate change.

Hundreds of projects across the country have lost funding, and although prosecution sought to restore it, Trump’s “big and beautiful bill” has eliminated all IRA money which has not yet been disbursed.

The decision to cancel the financing occurred almost at the same time as the EPA announced funding of $ 30 million for rural water improvements – a drop in the bucket compared to what was available under the Biden administration. None of the new funding is going to the region of Marcea’s house.

Jimenez said that EPA’s actions “do not correspond to their messaging”.

“Drinking water is a human right and it should not be a political subject that is disputed,” she said.

The Community Water Center is now looking for other sources of state financing, but Jimenez added that the defenders are determined even if the situation for the moment remains uncertain.

“It is not because a subsidy is canceled that the problem disappears,” said Jimenez.