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 prodtion inthe word, many li withoutlean driing war whileat the ee of morocco's sahara region, harvesting wat from fohas the pontial toeeply imct culture amera focus ring clicking] [shutter clicking]

sheri nter: th was the dr store-- the rt-colorebuilding on the her sid of it w th barber op. the histy of allsworth as inow it icolonel allenorth--wh he retid from t army--wted a pce where he could go and settle with his people, which wasn't too many places available at the time, and he found this piece of land. dung the me when ere were droughts everywhere and things were bad in different towns and cities, allensworth thrived.

it thrived because they knew how to make it thrive. start with what yohave. ma somethi with iand nevebe satised. that's a quation by gege washiton carv-- dese kada: boor t. hunterno. geor washingn carr. but lonel aensworthade thatappen 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 th largest fshwater ke west the misssippi, and ba in the 1890s. d farmingecame moe prevalentin the aa, the wat srted bei diverte r that. d it reay has ha significt impact on the cmunity. e communy was tiving, b no commity

thrivewithouquality ter. is is wh have too to t it. anthe go thing i th'vgiven these ps, so 's nageablfor us get th water, t i'm ableo do this. kids y not be or the derly manot, buthis is r syst for war. tove dl clic] it's comin [bl ringin

[train istle bles] hunter: in t past, iwas bustlingittle to, lie i said peoe from a around me herei hate tt it washipped ay at. thdownfallf this comunity w water. d i' here right now 100-plus years later still trying to work at this twnship, is commity, tting go, affordle, quality ter. ssi snyd: all rit. so i'd lie to sta with the te ll rert summa... we we finallyble to cplete a test wl recent, which s theain poinof discuioat ts morni's meing. andhe test ll did iicate that we can 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 waterthere' great dal of sence out there cumentinthe ill fects ofrsenic o han healt arsenics finitely cancer-using agent. 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 iseally thhisty of wat in cafornia d in thamericanest. you knowagriculte does ussomeing lik80% of theater in liforniaand it

isade, younow, a mtibilliodollar iustry 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 by water--by growing these very valuable crops--there are people who don't have clean drinking wate aman monaco:anare is small town ofbout 600olks, located abou30 minut down from frno.

it'majoritlatino. lot of fol here ma their ling working surrounng field ok. oh. is at, li, where, lik there's a cster of trailer hom? n: yes. yes... mono: is there? , ok... thestarted tting upomes ansetting theiromes in 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 an officia cityas a rest, the w that 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, likdrinkingater, to the ridents. t early 2000s, the community services district found that they had water that was contaminated th arnic. so ey got arant om the deral gornment tt was abo $1.6 miion toconstruc an arsenitreatmenplant. sabel sorio spking spash]

stay or here androp in e water fill thisbecause en they ll is, it's moreasy to dp righhere dream, the ameran dream. [ctinues ispanish] tha's bause i me overere. [contins in spash] monaco: e communy was rely

not invved in t process the cotructionf the aenic trement pla. so,eally,hat th saw appeningas a lotf nstructi was gng on, and then their bls srocket. th arseni treatmt plant s inalled in010, abo midway throu the yea and the6 nths lar, it washut dow causet was tocostly t operate. [solorio speaking spanish]

ram cohe the chaenge in smalcommunits is that ey'e not ab to tually r their o system you kno they c't afrd, you ow, to he an orator th would bthere. is is o of our boratori. and this is where we do various types ofests omobile uts for war treatmt and desanation, ter qualy analys, and son. and ts is imarilyn preparion for alays larg scale dign of systs that a then fid eployabl this isater, no ampagne. well,e' lookingt the conol inteace r thplant at is ruing at poche.

ris linnan: we're in the poche draage dirict off of rsell avee here, los bano at onef the pit treatmt tt sis for treating bsurfacerain waer. this partular proct house a prect forhe univsity ofcaliforn, los anles. and th're tting seral procses inlving rever osmosisif youad a sies ere in aarea lik this,n the ceral vaey, where u have ls of sll mmunitiethat are sprd out ov a largerea and u uld put a sma plant le thi a packa plant--ere' a pottial the for cost vings-t would poteially be game chger. coh: there aeconomi scaleere. the more syems thatou have,he lor the co is. youan think abo all tho communies as essenally bei a virtual wer distrt. here ey are coected viintern and

trefore he that befit of beingart of aistrict,ven thougheographilly the're not nnected. snyr: i thi it soun veryromisingand, in ct, i thk if sma commuties re gonnaave to g treatmt, it's gonna ve toe a mol like tt. kaara: rig now, weant toake surwe havenough water f the peoe to liv here anfor us tgrow. and rit now, we arat capacy becaus our sysm is old, and weeed to irove tha [solio speakg spanis narrator: access to clean drinking water in rural california is complicated, but inemote viages thalie

thin mocco's soutest mntain rion, thepposite true. re, nontditional solutis are beg embrac and givi hope to commuties in ne. [khadijghouate eaking native lguage] mila baach: herthe verty ha been sggering

iterms ofater. ople wer livingn perpetuly endle anxiety d manyf the won were telling us how they would go thity and ge watefirst to the childre to the derly, and to t animals [dony brays] runtin [haa tazrou speaki native nguage]

bargh: the wer shorte and th irregulity of rnfall have me liveliod here ry difficu for theousehold [vehicle horn honks] [momed zabo speakin nativlanguage

[aissa rh speaki frenc bargach: the impact of climate change just within the 12 years at we, as an organization, haveeen acti in e region is real staggerg. there has en a gnifica increasen the he and in e summs. the sara is rightn

he otheride of t mountai and is ving towds this gion ve steadi. ounirbbar speing french] bargachfog takeaway all youvisuals.hen itomes vey, very owly and gciously i run is organation th tod has theargest futioning g collecon project in the world.

barga: the fogoes thrgh t net, anthen themall moleculeof waterhat are insi t fog are ught in e honeycb sort f nettig. and hen with avity, ey descend io a tter, anthen gather em. [abbarpeaking ench]

[derhem speaking french]

[abbar speakinfrench]

[indistit convesation] [houssn sousane speing nativlanguage

[abbar speaking french]

[tzroutepeaking nate langua] ousane eaking nate langua]

[derhem speaking french]

announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county community foundation and the farvue foundation. 8

08/22/22 08/22/22 ." [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we're in the midst of the greatest disaster of the 21st-century. it started out with a drug like oxycontin and has morphed since then into a hydra headed beast. amy: fighting and escalating national tragedy, a federal judge in ohio issues t