This is part three of a three-part series supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 California Health Equity Fellowship. Find part one here and part two here.
Crop fields surround San Jerardo Farmworker Cooperative. A few trees provide a small wind buffer for a community hall, a preschool and 64 houses.
Some of the 250-odd residents have been here for almost 50 years. For most of that time, safe water has been a concern.
Co-op manager Rosa Carrillo says after three consecutive well closures, no one trusts the fourth. Its nitrate levels have been steadily rising and are approaching the EPA limit.
“Now what?” she says. “So, we have to pay more? Or we have to dig another well? Where?”
Many of the residents want limits on the nitrogen fertilizer applied to Salinas Valley fields. Regulation, they say, is the only way the groundwater contamination will stop.
The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board tried to set nitrate limits a few years ago, but the state water board struck down the regulation. It argued that more information was needed and convened an expert panel to look into the data.
San Jerardo and environmental and fishing groups are suing the Central Coast and state water boards. They say there’s plenty of data, and that delaying regulation is poisoning people and ecosystems. Carrillo says the board is trying to protect agriculture, but water is a human right.
“Money, you can replace it. Financially, you can recover,” she says. “But how can you recover losing your mom, your dad, your families?”
California Rural Legal Assistance attorney Elias Rodriguez is representing the petitioners.
He says even if limits are set and growers comply right away, it won’t be a quick fix.
“Any nitrate in fertilizers that's being applied right now… we're not going to see until a decade, or two from now.”
That’s because it can take years for nitrates to sink into aquifers. But the thousands of people affected by the contamination need clean water now.
The state water board ordered the regional board to create a program for supplying alternative water—beyond the bottled water it already provides in some areas.
At the first workshop in August, engineering geologist James Bishop presented three options. Point of use and point of entry treatments both use specialized filters. Bottled water would be used when contaminant levels are too high for filters.
These solutions could cost $6-7million dollars a year over 10 years, and they will be at least partially funded by growers who are contributing to the problem. Some growers already provide alternative water, but they say stopping the nitrate pollution at the source will be difficult.
In the middle of a Huntington Farms lettuce field, pest control and crop advisor Mark Mason says many growers are hesitant to apply less nitrogen fertilizer.
“Everybody wants to have a little bit of insurance,” he says, adding that nitrogen is cheap compared to an $8,000 per acre crop.
But he thinks education and new technology can change things. Tools like CropManage calculate exactly how much fertilizer to apply.
“If CropManage says 10 gallons of something, we still put a little bit of an insurance on that,” says Mason. “We might go 12 or 15, but in the past we might've gotten 30.”
Planting cover crops like grasses in the off-season can help take up excess nitrates from the soil. But Huntington Farms only cover crops about 5% of its fields, which is average for the region. Mason says the cover crops prevent a field from being immediately ready for the next cash crop.
“We want to be able to plant at almost any time,” he says.
Irrigation management can also help. For example, some of the already-contaminated water could replace fertilizer. Mason is working with scientists on that. Still, he says reaching the nitrate limits previously set by the local water board would be difficult.
Back at San Jerardo, Rosa Carrillo vows to keep demanding change for residents.
“We are not going to be quiet anymore, because they deserve to have justice,” she says.
During the August workshop, Central Coast water board manager Mary Hamilton acknowledged residents’ frustration but cautioned that rolling out a clean water solution will take time.
“We recognize the need for this program is significant and urgent, and we want to move quickly,” she said. “And at the same time, we're committed to this transparent public process.”
The first public comment period about the water supply program is open until September 9th.
