onarrator: on this episo "earth focus," the most basic human need is also its most precious commodity. 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 o' moroccos sahara region, harvesting water from fog has the ial to deeply impact a culture. [camera focus ring clicking] [shuer clicking]

sheri hunter: at was the drug store-- the rust-colored building. on the other sidef it was the barber shop. the history of allensworth as i know it is colonel allensworth--when he rered from the army--wanted a place wheree could go and 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 were droughts everywhere and things were bad in different wns 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 be satisfied. that's a quotation by george washington carver--

denise kadara: booker t. hunter: no. george washington carver. but colone allensworth made that happen here because this was ours. s was our history. this was our town. we did it. and when i say "we," i'm speaking of blacks. 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 are the water started being diverted for that. d it really has hadic a signt impact on the community. the community was thriving, but no community thrives without quality water. h

this is whate to do to get it. and the good thing is they've given us these pots, so it's managele for us to 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] 's coming. [bell ringing] [train whistle blares] hunter: in the past, it was a bustlingittle town,

like i said.e peoom all around came here. i hate that it was chipped away at. the downfall of this community was water. and i'm here right now 100-plus yearser latill trying to work atsh this to, this community, getting good, affordable, quality water. jessi snyder: all right. so i'd like to start with the testrt well reummary... we were finally able to complete a test well recently, which was the main point of discussion at this morning's meeting. and the test well did indicate that we can expect to get good compliant water from thispot 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 contaminant

lel that the state sets as safe drinking water. there's a great deal of science out there documenting the ill effects of arsenic on human health. arsenic is definite a cancer-causing agt. it's very important that they have influence on what the ultite project turns out to because it has to be something that they're happy with, that they're comfortable with, tha they're confident in, and that they can afford to run. jon christensen: the history of water in the san jovalley is really the history of water in california and in the american west.ow you agriculture does use something like 80% of the water in californiaand it is made, you know, a multibillion-dollar industry possible. it's one of t great paradoxes

of california and of the central valley and of the san joaquin valley, in particular, that in the midst ou so 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 minutes down 41 fm fresno. it's majority tino. a lot of here make their living working in surrounding fields. ok. oh. is at, like, where, like, there's a cluster of trailer homes? man: yes. yes... monaco: is it there? oh, ok... they started setting up homes

and setting up their homes in a way that was not planned by local governments around them. then and at some point, local government did become aware of the counity but did not incorporate them into an official town oan official city. as aesult, 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 to provide ctain vital services, 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 government that 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. because when they fill this, it's more easy to drop right here. dream, the american dream... [continu in spanish] that's becau i move over here. [continues in spanish] monaco: the community was really no involved in the process of the construction of the arsenic treatment plant. so, really, what they saw happeng was a lot of construction was going on, and then their bills skyrocketed. the arsenic treatment plant was

installed in 2010, about midway through the year. and then 6 months later,t was shut down because it was too costly to operate. [solorio speaking spanish] yoram cohen: t challenge in small communities is that they're t able to actually run their own systems. you know, they can't affou know, to have an operator that would be there.

this is one of our laboratories. and this is wh do various types of tests on mobile units for water treatment and desalination, water quality analysd so on. and this is primarily in preparation for always larger scale design ofst s that are then field deployable. this is water, not champagne. 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 russellvenue here, los banos, at one of the pilot treatment

test sites for treating subsurrain water. this particular project houses a project for the university of california, los angeles. and they're testing several processes ining reverse osmis. if you had a series where in an area like this, in the central valley, where you have lots of small communities that are spread out over a large area and you 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. cohene is an economies of scale here. the more systems that you have, the lower the cost is. you can think about all those communities ases entially being a virtual water district. here they are connectevia internet and therefore have that benefit of being part of a district, even 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 waeer for the people to liv here and for us to grow. and right now, ewe are at capacity beca our system is older, and we need to improve t [solorio speaking spanish] narrator: access to clean drinking water in ruralrn calif is complicated, butvi in remote llages that lie within morocco's southwest mountain region, the opposite is true. here, nontraditional solutions are being embraced and giving hope to communities in need.

[khadija ghouate speaking native language] jamila bargach: he 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 brs] [grunting] [hazna tazroute spe native language]

bargach: the water shortagand the irregularity of rainfall have difficult for the households. [vehicle horn honks] [mohamed zabour speaking native language]

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

unir abbar speaking french] bargach: fog takes away all your visuals. then it comes ver very slowly and graciously. i run this organization that today has the largest functioning fog collection project in the world. bargach: the fog es through

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

[derhem speaking french]

[abbar speaking french]

[indistinct conversation] [houssain sousane sng native language]

[abbar spearench] [tazroute speaking] native lang

[sousane speaking native language]

[derhem speaking french]

announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county community foundation and the farvue 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 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, they think it's like a monster that will come and get you. jamaicans have an ingrained fear of reptiles igeneral so we don't like lizards, and a crocodile is just a big lizard. so, moof people have the vie "best crocodile is a dead one." so, we have to try and combat that.