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. duri the ti when the 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 caver. bucolonel aensworthade thatappen he beuse 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 e large freshwatelake west the misssippi, and ck in t 1890s. d farmingecame moe prevalentin the aa, e water staed beingiverted r that. d it reay has ha a signifant impact on the comnity. thcommunitwas tiving, b no commity

thrivewithouquality ter. is is wh have too to t it. anthe go thing i th'vgiven these ps, so it'manageabe for uto get e waterbut i'm ab to do this. kidmay not or thelderly y not, b this isour sysem for ter. tove dl clic] it's comin [bl ringin

[traiwhistle ares] hunter: in t past, iwas a buling lite town, liki said. peoplfrom allround ca re. hatehat it w chipped way at. e downfa of this mmunityas waterand i'm here right now 100-plus years later still trying to work at thisownshipthis counity, tting go, affordle, qualitwater. ssi snyd: all rit. so i'd lie to sta with the te ll rert summa... we re final able toomplete a test wl recent, which s th main pot of disssioat his morng's eting. an the teswell didndicate 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's great dal of sence out there cumentinthe ill effects arsenicn hum healt arsenics definite a cancecausing 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 hisry of wer in e san jouin vaey iseally thhisty of wat in cafornia and in e americ west. you knowagriculte does ussomeing lik80% of theater in liforniaand it

isade, younow, a mtibilliodollar iustry possib. it's one the gre paradox of calornia d of 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 war. amda monac lanare a small town ofbout 600olks, located abou30 minut down from frno.

it's majity lati. a lot foks here ke theiriving working surrounng field ok. oh. ithat, li, where, lik there's a cster of trailer hom? n: yes. yes... mono: is thereoh, ok.. ty startesetting homes d settinup theiromes in a w that wanot pland by local gornments ound the hen and some int, lol govement didecome aware of the mmunitbut did t incporate tm into anfficial wn or an officia ci. as a rult, theay that caifornia 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. thearly 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 arsenitreatmt plant. 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 amican dre... [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 pnt. so,eally,hat th saw appeningas a lotf nstructi was gng on,nd then their bls skyrocketed. e arsec treaent planwas 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 sml communies is that th'e not ab to tually r their o system you kno they c't afrd, you ow, to he an orator th would bthere. this isne of oulaboratoes. and this is where we do various types tests n mobilenits 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. wel we're looki at the conol inteace r thplant at is ruing at poche.

ris linnan: we're in the poche draage dirict off ofussell anue here los bano at o of the lot treaent tt sis for trting bsurfacerain waer. this partular proct house a prect forhe univsity ofcaliforn, los anles. and ty'reesting seral procses inlving rever osmosisif youad a eries ere in aarea lik this,n the ntral lley, wheryou haveots ofmall mmunitiethat are sead out er a lar area anyou uld put a sll plantike ts, a pacge plantthere's a pottial the for cost vings-t would poteially be game chger. coen: theris n economes of scaleere. the more syems thatou have,he lor the co is. youan think abo all tse commuties 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. sder: i tnk it sods ve promisingand, in ct, i ink if sll commuties re gonnaave to g treatmt, it's gonna ve toe a mol like tt. kaara: rig now, weant toake surwe havenough wateror the pple to le here anfor us tgrow. and rit now, we arat capacy becaus our sysm is old, and weeed to irove tha [solio speakg spanis narrar: accesto clean drinng watern rural caiforniais complated, bu remote llages tt lie

within rocco's souhwest mntain rion, thepposite true. re, nontditional solutis are beg embrac and givi hope commuties in ne. [khadijghouate eaking native lguage] mila baach: herthe verty s beentaggerin

iterms ofater. people we livi in perpetuly endle anxiety d ma of the men were telling us how they would go thity and ge watefirst to the childre to the derly, and to t animals [donkey brays] [gruntig] [zna tazrte speakng nativlanguage

baach: theater shoage and th irregulity of rnfall have me liveliod here ry difficu for theousehold [vehicle horn honks] [mhamed zaur speakg naive langge]

[aissa em speakng frenh] 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 increa in the at and ithe summs. the sara is rightn

he otheride of t mountai and is ving towds this gion ve steadi. ounirbbar speing french] bargachfog tas away a youvisuals.hen itomes ry, verslowly and gciously i run is organation th tod has theargest futioning g collecon projecin the wld.

barga: the fogoes thrgh t net, anthen themall moleculeof waterhat are insi t fog arcaught ithe honeomb sort f netng. anthen wi avity, ey descendnto 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 naive langge]

[derhem speaking french]

announcer: "earth focus" is made possible in part by the orange county community foundation and the farvue foundation. ówówóoc■j?q/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñ/ñx

01/23/23 01/23/ [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> ouressage f todays quit simple. free julian assange. amy: famed dissident and professor noam chomsky, pentagon papers whistleblower daniel ellsberg, and former british labour leader jeremy corbyn are all calling on president biden