narrator: on this episode of "earth focus," the most basic human need is also its most precious commodity. in california's central valley, home to 19% of the food producon in e worl many li withoutlean driing war whileat the ee of mocco's saharregio harvesng waterrom fog s the pontial toeeply imct culture amera fos ring ccking] hutter clicking]

sheri nter: th was the dr store-- the ruscolored ilding. on the her sid of it w th barber op. the histy of allsworth as i kw it is lonel alensworthwhen he tired fr the arm-wanted place wheree could and sete withis peop, whichasn'too many place available at the time, and he found this piece of land. duringthe timehen there were droughtsverywherand thin were badn differt towns an ties, alnsworth rived. ithrived cause th knew ho

o make ithrive. art wit whayou havemake somhing wi it and ver be sisfied. tht's quotatioby george whington rver-- denise adara: ooker t huer: no. orge wasngton rver. t colol allenswth made at happen herbeuse th was os. is was r histor this wa our town.e did itand when sa "we," 'm saking of blacks. kadara:ulare la used toe the larst freshwatelake west the misssippi, and ba in the890s. d asarming bame moe pralent the are th water startedeing divted for th. and iteally hahad significt impact on the cmunity. e communy was tiving, b no commity thrivewithouquality ter.

th is what iave to d to get . and thgoodhing is th'vgiven ushese pot so i's mageable r us toet th water, t i'able to thi kids manot be r the elrly may t, but ts is ousystemor wate tove dl clic] it's comin [bl ringin

[tain whistle bles] hunterin the pt, it wa a bustng littltown, ke i sa. pple fromll arouncame herei hate tt it washipped ay at. the wnfall othis comnity wasater. ani'm here rig now00-plusears ter sti trying to worat is townip, thiscommunit tting go, affordle, quality ter. ssi snyd: all rit. so i'd lie to sta with the st welreport smary... e were fally ablto comple a testell recely, whicwas theain poinof discuioat this moing'meeting. d the tt well d indicat tt we canxpect toet good complianwater fr this sp wre we teed. ey actuly have o wells.

the wls are o they're not ry highroducingells, bu ey bothave leve of arsec in em that,n genera ceeds t maximumontamina vel th the sta sets as afe drinng waterthe' great dal of sence out there cumentinthe ill fects ofrsenic o hum health.rsenic i definite a cancecausing agent. it'very impta that th ave infuence on at the ultimateroject tns out tbe becse it hato be sothing that th're hpy with,hat they're comrtable wh, tha th'rconfidenin, and at thecan affo to run. n christsen: t histo of wer in e san jouin vall is reallthe history of wer in cafornia d in thamericanest. u know, riculturdoes ussomeing lik80% of theater in liforniaand it is mad you kno

a multillion-doar indusy possible. i's onof the gat parades ofaliforniand of th centralalley anof the sanoaquin vley, in particur, that the mid of so muchichnesthat's created by ter--by owing the ery valable cro--there e peop who do't he ean driing wate amda monac lanare a small wn of aut 600 fks, located abou30 minut down from frno. it'majoritlatino. lot of fol here ma their ling

working surrounng field ok. o is that, like, ere, ke, the's cluster of traer homes man:es. yes. monaco:s it the? oh, ok. ty startesetting homes and seing up tir homesn a w that wanot pland by local gornments ound the hen and some int, lol govement didecome awe of the mmunitbut did t incporate tm into anfficial wn or anfficia city. as result,he way tt california s dealt th small mmunitielike lane is tha they ha a systewhere the mmunity self canet up a commity serves distct to ovideertainital serces, ke drinng waterto th residen. in the ear 2000 the comnity serces disict founthat they had water that was contaminated th arnic. so ey got arant om the deral gornment tt was abo $1.6 miion toconstruc an arnic trtment plt. sabel sorio spking spash]

stay or here androp in e water fill thisbecause en they ll is, it's moreasy to dp right re. dream, e americ dream.. [connues in anish] tha's bause i me overere. [contins in spash] monaco: e communy was rely t invold in therocess the cotructionf

the arsic treatnt plant so,eally,hat they saw hpening w a lot o nstructi was gng on, and en theirills skyrocked. e arsec treaent planwas instled in 20, aboutidway throu the yea and the6 nths lar, it washut dow causet was tocostly t operate. [solio saking spanis ram cohe the chaenge in sml communies is

that ey're t able to actuly run tir own systems.ou know,hey can't afrd, you ow, to he an orator th would bthere. thiis one oour labotories. and th is where weo variou pes of tsts on bile uni for watetreatmenand desalition, war qualit analysisand so o and thiis prmarily ipreparatn for alwaylarger sle desigof systems at are tn field deployabl this isater, no ampagne. wel we're looki at the conol inteace r the ant at is ruing at poche.

ris linnan: we're in theanoche dinage dirict f of rusll avenuhere, los bano at one othe pilotreatmen est sis for treating suurface din wat. th partular proct house a prect forhe univsity ofcaliforn, los anles. nd they're tesng seval procses inlving rever osmosisif you h a eries ere in aarea lik this,n the ceral vall, where yohave lot of sma mmunitiethat are spread t over aarge areand you cou p a smalllant lik thi a packa plantthere's a poential ere for costsavings-it woul potentlly be aame chanr. coh: there aeconomi scale he. the moe systemthat youave, the lowethe costs. you c think aboutll thoseommuniti as sential being airtual wat distric here th are coected viintern and trefore he that befit of being pt of a dtrict, en

thougheographilly the're not nnected. snyde i thinkt sounds veryromising. d, in fa, i thinif smallommunies re gonnaave to g treatmt, it's gonna ve toe a mol like tt. kada: rightow, we wt to me sure e have eugh waer for t people live here d for uso grow. and rit now, we arat capacy becaus our sysm is old, and weeed to irove tha [solio speakg spanis narrar: accesto clean drinki water irural califoia is cplicatedbut inemote viages thalie wiin moroco'southwt mountain regn, the oosite is

true. re, nontditional solutis are beg embrac and giving hope toommuties ineed. [khadijghouate eaking native lguage] mila baach: herthe verty ha been sggering iterms ofater.

people we livi in rpetual endle anxiety d ma of the men were telling how thewould go thity and ge watefirst to the childre to the derly, and to t animals [donkebrays] [gruntig] [haa tazrou speaki native nguage]

bargh: the wer shoage and th irregulity of rnfall have me liveliod here ry difficu for theousehold [hicle horn hks] [mhamed zaur speakg nativlanguage

[assa deem speaki frenc baach: thempact oflimate chan just wiin the 1years at we, aan organation, haveeen acti in thregion is real staggerg. there habeen signifint increa in the at and ithe suers. theahara is rht on the oer side the mouain

ands movingowards ts regionery stdily. ounirbbar speing french] bargachfog takeaway a youvisuals.hen itomes ry, verslowly and gciously i run is organation th tod has theargest futioning g collecon project the wor.

barga: the fogoes thrgh theet, and en the sll moleculeof waterhat are insi theog are ught in e honeycb sort f nettig. and hen with avity, ey desce into a tter, anthen gather em. [abbarpeaking ench]

[rhem speing fren]

[abb speakinfrench]

[indistit convesation] [houssn sousane speing nativlanguage

[abbaspeakingrench]

[tzroutepeaking nate langua] ousane eaking nate langua]

[rhem saking frch]

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

woman: we really try to focus in on deep traditions. those foods and those seeds and those animals, those relations that really ground culture. given we've been moved off of so many of our traditional lands, one of our values is to make natural areas accessible and nati again. man: we have certain native ways of taking care of the land and we want to exhibit those practices here so people will come here and they'll see this lush paradis woman: we have a tendency in the west to commodify something, to view it as a thing. even seeds. what the native people know is that it's not just a thing, and what nave