narran this episode of "earth focus," the most basic human need is also its most precioucommodity. in california's central valley, home to 19% of the food production in the world, many live without clean drinking water while at the edge of morocco's sahara region, harvesting water from fog has the potential to deeply impact a culture.am a focus ring clicking] [shutter clicking]

sheri hunter: that was the drug store-- the rust-colored building. on the other side of it was the barber shop. the history of allensworth as i know it is colonel allenorth--when he retired from the army--wanted a place where he coulnd settle with his people which wasn't too many places available at the time, and he found this piece of land. during the time when there weren droughts everywherthings were bad in different towns and cities, allensworth thrived. it thrived because they knew how to make it thrive. start with what you have. make something with it and never beatisfied. that's a quotation by george washington carver--a denise kadbooker t. hunter: no. george washington

carver. but colonelor allen made that happen here because this was ours. this was our history. this was our town. we did it. and when i say "we," i'm speaking ofac . kadara: tulare lake used to be the largest freshwater lake west of the mississippi, and back in the 1890s. and as farming became more prevalent in the area, the water started being divertel for that. and it rhas had the community. the community was thriving, but no community thrives withouquality water.

this is what i have to do to get it. and the good thing is they've given us these pots, so uit's manageable foto get the water, but i'm able to do this. kids may not be or the elderly may not, but this is our system for water. [stove dial clicks] it's coming. [bell ringing] tl [train whblares]nt hu: in the past, it was a bustling little to like i said. people from all around came

here. i hate that it was chipped away at. the downfall of this community was water. and i'm n here rig 100-plus years later still trying to work at this township, this community, getting good, affordable, quality water. j'i snyder: all right. so d like to start with the test well report summary... we were finally able to complete a test well recently, which wa the main point of discussion at this morning's meeting. and the test well did indicate that we can expect to get good complit water from this spot where we tested. they actually have two wells. the wells are ok. they're not very high-producing wells, but they both have levels of arsenic in them that, in general, exceeds the maximum contaminante level thattate sets as

safe drinking water. there's a great deal o science out there documenting the ill effects of arsenic on h humlth. arsenic is definitely a cancer-causing agent. it's very important that they have influence on what the ultimate prourns out to be because it has to be something that they're happy with, thatrt they're comle with, that they're confident in, and that they can afford to run. jon christensen: the history of water in the san joaquin valley is really the history of water in california and in the american west. you know, agriculture does use something like 80% of the w is made, you know, a multibillion-dollar industry possible. it's one of the great paradoxes of california and of

the central valley and of the san joaquin valley, in particular, that in the midst of so much richness that's created by water--by growing these very valuable crops--there are people who don't have clean drinking water. amanda monaco: lanare is a small town of about 600 folks, located about 30 minuteses down 41 from fr' it's majority latino. a lot of folks here make their living working in surrounding fields. ok. oh. is that, liere, like, there's a cluster of trailer homes? man: yes. yes... mons it there? oh, ok... they started setting up homes and setting up their homes int a way ts not planned by

local governments around them. then and at some point, local government did become aware of the community d not incorporate them into l official town or an off city. as a result, the way that california has dealt with small communities like lanare is that they have a system where the community itself can set up a community services district tl provide certain vervices, like drinking water, to the residents. in the early 2000s, the community services district found that they had water that was contaminated with arsenic. so they got a grant from the federal go was about $1.6 million to construct an arsenic treatment plant. [isabel solorio speaking spanish] so stay over here and drop in the water to fill

up this. becaen they fill this, it's more easy to drop right here. dream, the american dream... [continues in spanish] ovat's because i mov here. [continues in spanish] monaco: the community was really not involved in the process of the construction o the arsenicreatment plant. so, really, what they saw happening was a lot of construction was going on, and then their bilrocketed. the arsenic treatment plant was installed in 2010, about midway

through the year. and then 6 months later, it was own because it was too costly to operate. [solorio speaking spanish] yoram cohen: the challenge in small communities is that they're not able to actually run theirwn systems. you know, they can't afford, you know, to have an operator that would be there.

this is one of our tories. and this is where we do variouse types ofs on mobile units for war treatment and desalination, water quality analysis, and so on. and this is primarily in preparatiofor always larger scale design of systems that are then field deployable. this is water, not chamgne. well, we're looking at the control interface for the plant that is running at panoche. chris linneman: we're in the panoche drainage district off of russell avenue los banos, at one of the pilot treatment test sites for treating

subsurface drain water. thisje particular p houses a project for the university of california, los angeles. and they're testing several processes involving reverse osmosis. if you had a series where an area like this, in the central valley, where you have lots of small communities that are spread out over a large area u could put a small plant like this, a package plant--there's a potential there for cost savings--it would potentially be a game changer. cohen: there is an economies of scale here. the more systems that you have, the lower the cost is. you can think about all those communities as essentially being a virtual water district. here they arern connected via in and therefore have that benefit of benng part of a district, e though geographically they're not connected. snyder: i think it sounds very promising. and, in fact, i think if small communities are gonna have to go to treatment, it's gonna have

to be a model like that. kadara: right now, we want to make sure we have enough water for teople to live here and for us to gr. and right now, we are at capacity because our system is older, and we need to improve that. [solorio speaking spanish] rrator: access to clean drinking water in rural california is complicated, but in remote villages that lie within morocco's southwest mountain region, the opposite true. here, nontraditional solutions are being embracednd giving hope to communities in need.

[khadija ghouate speaking nave language] jamila bargach: here the poverty has been staggering in terms of water. people were living in perpetually endless anxiety. and many of the women were telling us how they would go thirsty and give water first to their children, to the elderly, and to the animals.

[donkey brays] [grunting] [tazroute speaking native language]

bargach: t water shortage and the irregularitof rainfall have made livelihood here very difficult for the households. [vehicle horn honks] [mohamed zabour speaking native language]

[aissa derhem speaking french] bargach: the impact of climate change just within the 12 years that we, as an organization, have been activen the region is really staggering. there has been a significant increasee heat and in the summers. the sahara is right on the other side of the mountain and is moving towards this region very steadily.

[mounir abbar speaking french] bargach: fog kes away all your visuals. then it comes very, very slowly and graciously. i run this organization that todayas the largest functioning fog collection project in the world. ghargach: the fog goes thr the net, and then the sma

molecules of water that are inside the fog are caught in the honeycomb sort of netting. and then with gravity, they descend into gutter, and then we gather them. [abbar speaking french] [derhem speaking french]

[abbar speaking french]

[indistinct nversation] ai [housousane speaking native language]

[abbar speaking french] [tazroute speaking native language]

[sousane speaking native language]

[derhem speaking french]

announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county communityfa foundation and thue foundation.

[narrator] reggae music, tropical white sand beaches, these are the images that come to mind when people think of jamaica. less thought of is one of the islands' largest predators, the american crocodile. [man] it's part of our heritage, it's on our coat of arms. [speaker] the crocodile is the mascot for our cricket team, the jamaica tallawahs. it's on our jamaican defense force. [man] most people here fear the crocodile, stey think it's like a mon that will come and get you. jamaicans have an ingrained ar of reptiles in genera so we don't like lizards, and a crocodile is just a big lizard. so, most people have the view of, "best crocode is a dead one." so, we have to try and combat that.