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 waterrom fog s 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. duringthe timehen therwere 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 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 freshwatelake west the misssippi, and ck in t 1890s and as farng becam more alent the are the wertartedeing divted for th. and iteally hahad a signifant impa o th commuty. the counity wa thriving, b no commity

thrivewithouquality ter. this is what i havto do to get it. and the good thing is th'vgiven these ps, so it'manageabe for uto get e waterbut'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] huer: in t past, iwas a bustng littltown, liki said. peoe from a around me herei hate tt it washipped ay at. thdownfallf this mmunityas waterand i'm here right now 100-plus years later still trying to work at this twnship, is commity, tting go, affordle, ality war. 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 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 waterthe's great dal of sence out there cumentinthe ill fects ofrsenic o 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 really e history ofater in lifornia andn the amican wes yoknow, agculture es ussomeing lik80% of theater in liforniaand it

isade, younow, a mtibilliodollar iustry possib. i's onof the gat parades of cifornia 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 ean drinking wate amda monac lanare a small town ofbout 600olks, located abou30 minut dow41 from esno.

it's majity lati. a lot foks here ke theiriving working surrounng field ok. oh. ithat, li, where, like,here's a cluer of traer hom? n: yes. yes... monaco: 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 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. 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 arsenic eatmenplant. 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, the ameran dream. ontinuesn spanis tha's bause i me overere. [contins in spash] monaco: e communy was rely

t invold in therocess the cotructionf thersenic tatment plant. , reall what they saw happeni was a l of construcon was gng on,nd then theirills skyrocked. 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 all commities is that th'rnot able to acally runheir own 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 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. wel we're looki at the conol inteace r the ant at is ruing at poche.

ris linnan: we're in the poche draage dirict off of rsell avee here, los bano at o of the lot treaent est 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 seriewhere inn area le this,n the ntral valley, wheryou haveots ofmall mmunitiethat are sead out er a lar area anyou uld put a sll plantike thi a pacge plantthere's a pottial the for cost vings-t would poteially a game anger. coh: there aeconomi scaleere. the more syems thatou have,he lor the co is. youan think abo all tse commuties as esstially bng a virtual wer distrt. here ey are coected viintern and

trefore he that befit of being pt of aistrict,ven thougheographilly the're not nnected. sder: i tnk it sods very prosing. an in fact 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 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 narrar: accesto clean inking wer in rul califoia is cplicatedbut inemote viages thalie

withinmorocc's sthwest ountainegion, t oppositis true. re, nontditional solutis are beg embrac and giving hope toommunies n need. [khadijghouate eaking native lguage] mila baach: here the poverty has been staggering

in terms of water. people were living in perpetuly endless anxiety. and many of the women were telling us how they would go thity and give water first to the childre to the derly, and to t animals [dony brays] [gruntig] [zna tazrte speakng 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

[aia derhem saking ench] bargach: the impact of climate change just within the 12 years at we, as an organization, haveeen acti in thregion is real staggerg. there has en a gnifica increa in the at and ithe suers. theahara is rig on

he otheride of t mountai and is ving towds this gion ve steadi. 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 in the world.

barga: the fogoes thrgh t net, anthen themall moleculeof waterhat are insi the fog are ught in e honeycb sort f netng. anthen wi 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 naive langge]

[derhem speaking french]

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

foundation. pgdki÷ ÷

03/27/23 03/27/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> what we're doing tonight this protesting the government. we are fighting for our democracy. amy: a general strike has largely shut down israel following a weekend of massive protests against benjamin netayahu's plan to overhaul the judiciary. in his firing u