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 saharregion, 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 with s people whi wasn't too ma places availae at theime, d he fou this pie of lan duri the ti when the 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 herbecae th was os. is was r histor this wa our town. wdid it. d when i sa "we," 'm saking of blacks. kadara:ulare la used toe e large freshwatelake west the misssippi, and ba in the 1890s. d asarming bame moe pralent the are theater 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 o get itand the goodhing is the've ven these ps, so 's nageablfor us get 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

rain whistle ares] hunter: the pas it was a bustng littltown, ke i sa. pple fromll arouncame herei hate tt it washipped ay at. the wnfall othis comnity wasater. ani'm here rht now00-plusears laer stillrying to work this twnship, is commity, tting go, affordle, quality ter. ssi snyd: all rit. so i'd lie to sta with the te welreport smary... e were fally ablto comple a test wl recent, which s theain poinof discuioat this moing'meeting. d the tt well d indicat that wean expecto get gd compant watefrom thispot where wtested. theactuallyave two lls.

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's great dal of sence out there cumentinthe ill effects arsenicn hum health.rsenics definite a cancecausing en it's very important that they have influence on what the ultimate project turns out to be cause it has to be something th they're happyith, tha thy'reomfortle with,hat they're coident inand that they caafford trun. n christsen: t histo of wer in e san jouin vall is reallthe history of wer in cafornia an in the erican wt. u know, riculturdoes ussomeing lik80% of theater in liforniaand it is mad you kno

a multillion-doar indusy possib. it's one the gre paradox of calornia anof th centralalley anof the sanoaquin vley, in particur, that the mid of so muchichnesthat's created bwater--bgrowing ese ery valable cro--there e peop who do't he ean dnking war. aman monaco:anare is 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 thatlike, whe, 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 calornia hadealt wi 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. inhe ear 2000 the comnity serces ditrict fod that ty had watethat wasontaminated 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 righhere. dream, e americ dream.. [connues in anish] tha's bause i me overere. [contins in spash] naco: thcommunitwas rely t invold in therocess

ofthe consuction o the arsic treatnt pla. so,eally,hat theyaw hpening w a lot o nstructi was gng on, and th their bls skyrocked. th arseni treatmt plant s instled in 20, aboutidway throu the yea and the6 nths lar, it washut dow causet was tocostly t operate [solorio speaking spanish] yom cohen:he challge 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 thplant at is ruing at poche.

ris linnan: we're in theanoche dinage dirict ofof russe avenue re, s banos, ne of thpilot trtment test tes fotreating subsface dran waterthis partular proct house a prect forhe univsity ofcaliforn, los anles. nd they're tesng seval procses inlving reversesmosis. you h a eries whe 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 pacge plantthere's a pottial the for cost vings-t would potentially be aame chanr. coh: there aeconomi scale he. the moe systemthat youave, the lowethe costs. you c think abo all tho communies as sential being airtual wat distric here th are coected viintern and trefore he that befit of

being pt of aistrict,ven thougheographilly the're not nnected. snyde i thinkt sounds veryromising. d, in fa, i thk if sma communies 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 anfor us tgrow. and rit now, we arat capacy becaus our sysm is old, and weeed to irove tha [solio speakg spanis narrato access clean drinkingater in ral liforn is comicated, t inemote viages thalie wiin moroco'southwt mountain regn, the oosite is

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

peopleere ling in rpetual endlessnxiety. d manyf the won were telling how thewould go thity and ge watefirst to the childre to the derly, and to t animals [donkebrays] runtin [zna tazrte speakng native nguage]

bargh: the wer shoage and th irregulity of rnfall have me liveliod here ry difficu for theousehold [hicle rn hon] [momed zabo speakin nativlanguage

[assa derhem speakng frenh] 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 g goes tough 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]

[derh speakinfrench]

[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. =÷=÷=÷=÷=÷=÷=÷=÷=÷=÷v

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 native peo