El Comité para Tener
Agua Sana, Limpia, y Económica
Unincorporated areas north of Moss Landing, CA have had some of the highest levels of contamination of nitrate and 1,2,3-Trichloropropane CWC has seen in our 14-year history - sometimes up to 30 times the legal limit. Due to these alarmingly high contamination levels, when we opened our Central Coast office in September 2018, we started organizing first in this area of Monterey County.
When we held the first community platica at a local elementary school in December 2018, one parent attended. That parent agreed to host a second platica in their home, which was attended by eight residents. By February 2019, just two months later, residents decided to formalize into a community-based organization called El comité para tener agua, sana, limpia y económica (The Committee for Safe, Clean, and Affordable Drinking Water) unified behind the mission to obtain safe, clean and affordable drinking water for their community.
By forming this Community-Based Organization and coming together to define a mission, name, voting structure, and established bylaws, community members in the Bluff, Jensen, Springfield Road and surrounding areas now have a stronger method to build greater power over decisions impacting their homes, schools, and community at large.
In just a year and a half since its founding, el Comité has help recruit more than 25 households to test their wells, help their neighbors get signed up for bottled water delivery, testified at meetings to advocate for more protections for groundwater, spoken to the media, sent letters to state decision makers to set health-protective limits for unregulated contaminants impacting local schools, and sent a letter to the State Water Board requesting funding to conduct a study for long-term drinking water solutions for their community.
El Comite currently has 16 active members and is still growing.
For more information, please contact Mayra Hernandez at mayra.hernandez@communitywatercenter.org or call 831-288-0450.
