Arvin Veterans Hall @ 10:00-2:30 pm
The Environment Action Team invites you to come learn about resident efforts to improve South Kern and how you can support their work. More details to come! Food, Transportation, and childcare will be provided. Please contact Petra Martinez with any questions and if you will need transportation and childcare at (661) 725-4350. See attached flyer Building Power in South Kern
CreandoPoderen el Sur de Kern
Reserve la Fecha! Dia1 de Marzodel 2014
Salon de Veteranosde Arvin alas 10:00-2:30 pm
El equipodel MedioAmbienteles invitaa aprendersobrelos esfuerzosde residents para mejorarel Sur de Kern y come ustedpuedeapoyarestetrabajo. Mas detallesporvenir!
Comida, transporte, y cuidadode ninossera proveido. Porfavor de contactara Petra Martinez con cualquierpreguntao sinecesitatransporteo cuidadode ninoal (661) 725-4350. Mire el bolante Enviro Save the Date spanish
by Alice Daniel, California Healthline Regional Correspondent
ARVIN — Thousands of students in the south Central Valley who didn’t have access to clean drinking water in their schools will now be able to quench their thirst safely after several organizations and companies that make water filters formed an unusual partnership.
More than 3,500 students in four public schools and five Head Start centers in the small towns of Arvin and Lamont southeast of Bakersfield in Kern County no longer have to worry about unsafe levels of arsenic in their drinking water.
“We really see this project as a model for other schools and communities that are struggling with contaminated water,” said Shen Huang, a technical analyst for the Community Water Center. “It’s a pretty creative solution. A lot of coordination went into it. If you work together you really can make a difference.”
CWC worked with the Committee for a Better Arvin, the Arvin Union School District and the Community Action Partnership of Kern on the project. The California Endowment is a major funder of the effort, and several manufacturers provided filters at no cost.
Arsenic levels in some areas of the south valley are twice as high as the EPA’s legal safety limit. “There are public health effects to chronic exposure of arsenic,” said Huang. It can cause cancer, Type 2 diabetes and reduced mental functioning in children.
Salvador Partida, co-founder of the environmental group Committee for a Better Arvin, has been pushing for filters in the school district for years. “It’s a real breakthrough, a tremendous help for these kids,” he said. “It’s not a permanent fix but at least it’s a start.”
Still, he wants to see a long-term solution for the entire town. “The only thing we can use the water we pay for is for our grass and to bathe.”
Widespread Problem in Valley and Beyond
Contaminated drinking water is not uncommon in the Central Valley. Dozens of small communities grapple with the problem. “It’s not limited to Arvin or Lamont,” said Huang. “Arsenic is a widespread issue, as well as nitrates.”
Arsenic is naturally occurring in the water in Kern County, but it can also come from practices like mining or chemical treatments, said Huang. Other contaminants, such as nitrates, are the result of decades of intense industrial agriculture.
“It’s a story that plays out all over the region,” said John Capitman, executive director of the Central Valley Health Policy Institute at Fresno State. Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and animal waste have seeped into the aquifers and then the groundwater for about 70 years, he said.
Some of these communities actually started out as labor camps for farm workers. “The social costs of food production in this region have really been borne by the laborers and residents,” he said.
A 2012 study by the University of California-Davis estimated that a quarter million people in the Tulare Basin in the Central Valley (one of the country’s leading dairy producers) and the Salinas Valley were at risk of nitrate contamination in their drinking water. High levels of nitrates have been linked to a potentially fatal condition called blue baby syndrome, caused by a lack of oxygen in the blood.
Many California towns operate their own small water districts. The volunteer boards often lack the technical expertise and the political clout to get clean drinking water, said Capitman. It’s also expensive to run treatment plants. According to the UC-Davis study, “Treatment and alternative supplies for small systems are more costly as they lack economies of scale.”
Even With Budget Cuts, School Districts Find Solutions
The report highlights the fact that in the Central Valley, unsafe tap water poses a “true public health concern” and that even providing filters “may be infeasible or too costly for cash-strapped schools.”
Michelle McLean, superintendent of the Arvin Union School District, said water contamination is a problem that causes a lot of tension and stress for districts that have already suffered major budget cuts. “Public schools, especially rural or high-poverty districts, usually don’t have the financial resources to provide alternative sources of drinking water,” said McLean. Before her district got filters, students brought bottled water from home. There were also water dispensers at each school but they were expensive to refill.
Now the schools not only filter the water in the water fountains, they also each have two hydration stations where students can refill their water bottles. “Parents can be assured that at least at school their kids will have clean water,” said McLean.
McLean said districts should work with public and private entities to apply for grants, get funding and find solutions. It’s also important to do the groundwork. She said her district and the community spent a lot of time researching the right filters for arsenic. “We had a really good work group and we started looking at all our options,” she said.
Getting the right filter is critical. “There’s a lot of sharks preying on our communities,” said Huang. “Some people will say their filters will take out anything. But filters are very specific to the contaminant. There’s not a one size fits all.”
The filters for this project are certified by the California Department of Public Health to remove arsenic effectively. The department has a list of certified devices on its website. DPH also offers grants for interim solutions to contaminated water in communities, said Huang.
Maintenance Is Key to Success
“Preliminary water testing already shows the filters are reducing the arsenic level below the safety limit,” said Huang. “But the success of the project is really in the maintenance and operation.”
Maintenance support and training will be provided to the school staff to ensure that the filters are performing successfully. “We want our projects to be sustainable, so the schools need to know what to do,” said Huang, who will be doing some of the training.
One of the funding partners in this project, Blue Planet Network, will track the process online, including data about water quality.
“The network is essentially a space for people to share their projects, to show how one creates change in the community,” said Huang. “Seeing these children get safe drinking water is very rewarding for us and our community partners.”
This past Thursday, community members and local leaders gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Rexland Acres Park in Southeast Bakersfield, to celebrate improvements that intend to make the park a friendlier place for families. In recent years families had abandoned the park, which had become a popular hangout for gang members. Drinking and drug use at the park was not uncommon.
The improvements include a pedestrian path that allows easy access through the park, fresh lines and markings on the basketball courts, a repaved parking lot with parking space striping, along with a new bench and permanent trash-can. While seemingly modest, residents say the improvements will go a long way toward making the park a safe and welcoming environment for the community.
“The kids need something to do besides TV and [they need] a place to go to play that’s also nearby,” said Yolanda Martinez, mother of two. “So people keep coming here to get together and get to know one another, we need more improvements to our parks.”
Community leaders spoke about the obstacles they and the community overcame together to make what began as just a hope into reality.
“This wasn’t just the accomplishment of [Kern] County Roads,” said Craig Pope, the director of Kern County Roads. “We had to bring together parks and recreation, Building Healthy Communities, and local businesses like Griffith [Company] to make this happen.”
And though the changes are small, the effort and time that went to implementing these changes was arduous.
“About three years ago the community and an organization [Greenfield Walking Group] came to us and told us, ‘we want this park improved,’” explained Bob Lerude, Director for Kern County Parks and Recreation. “We held a community meeting to develop a master plan for the park, and one of the things that was mentioned was a walking path through the park, huge potholes in the parking lot, connecting the park to the sewer, and smaller things like additional benches.”
No matter how many amenities a park might have, they would be useless if residents didn’t feel safe to use them, said Lerude. Community leaders said they believe that by drawing more families and children to use the park, the park will become less of a magnet for crime.
“Restricting tobacco and alcohol use is important,” continued Lerude. “We bring out increased enforcement and patrolling to make sure that people aren’t drinking and smoking so the park isn’t littered with cigarette butts or broken bottles.”
Manny Ruiz, father of three, says that while the park is safer, not enough has been done to keep the peace in the surrounding neighborhood.
“I’ve been a resident here for 13 years and this used to be the park you avoided,” Ruiz explained. “But aside from the park improvements, one thing that needs to be done is greater presence of law enforcement for the whole area. We’ve even had street racing at five in the afternoon, but with increased enforcement, the streets around the park would be much safer.”
In addition to increased safety, other improvements to the park are in the works.
“The master plan also includes a soccer field, picnic shelter, a water park, and now the task is to get the funding,” Lereude explained.
Ruiz, Martinez and even the young Diego Cuevas, 10, said what they wanted was a water park.
“I think the park needs a better stuff, like a water park,” Cuevas said.
Cuevas was one of many school children attending Fairview Elementary School, which is adjacent to the park. On the day of the opening, the children were led to a fence separating the park from the school to watch the ribbon-cutting ceremony. When the scissors snapped shut and the ribbon fell, the children applauded in celebration of their newly improved park.
“Right now, my favorite park is starting to be Fairview [Rexland Acres], because of the sidewalk,” Cuevas said.
If Cuevas speaks for the mood of the rest of the children, then the renovations, while modest, have been a huge success.
RCAC seeks nominations for the Yoneo Ono Rural Volunteer Award. The award honors rural people who have made significant lifelong contributions to their community in volunteer capacities. RCAC hopes to encourage further rural volunteer activities by acknowledging the accomplishments of a select few. We need your help to identify an outstanding rural volunteer to receive this distinguished award.
The RCAC board of directors uses six criteria to determine each year’s award winner. The first two criteria are minimum requirements.
The service must have occurred within rural communities of RCAC’s region, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and the western Pacific.
The service was volunteered and not a function of the nominee’s job. The next four criteria are listed in order of importance to rank and compare the nominees.
The degree to which the volunteer service made a difference in the quality of life for the rural community.
The type and needs of the communities of people served based on rural status, income, ethnicity, population and similar criteria.
The length and variety of the nominee’s volunteer activities.
The relationship of the nominee, project and communities to RCAC.
Please note that RCAC affiliation is NOT an application or award requirement. RCAC staff members review nominations and submit them to the board of directors for final selection.
The award is presented every two years so nominate your outstanding volunteer now!
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – Alcohol and tobacco use has been an ongoing problem at parks around Kern County, but a group of local youth is trying to curb the problem.
Naomi Mercado and Ann Williams use team work to clean up Rexland Acres Park.
“I like a pretty park, not one that looks nasty,” said Williams.
The girls are youth volunteers with the Building Healthy Communities AmeriCorps Program. They are joined by dozens of others for the community cleanup day.
“I think it’s really important for the youth to get involved at a young age and see the importance and value and the richness in serving their communities and promoting healthy lifestyles,” said Bryant Macias, an AmeriCorps youth mentor.
It was a similar park cleanup last year at four South Kern parks that the youth found some things that disturbed them.
“There were broken glass and a lot of trash,” said Ana Karen Yanez, a youth leader of Building Healthy Communities.
That wasn’t it; the group also found cigarette butts. Their findings encouraged the group to make a change and launch the “Beautiful Parks, Healthy Communities Campaign.”
“The campaign is mainly to reduce the alcohol and tobacco use in four different parks,” said Yanez.
Those parks include Weedpatch, Lamont, Rexland Acres and Digorgio Parks.
“Our goal is to have safe, clean parks for the kids and for families not to worry about glass in the sand where the kids play,” said youth leader Jose Pinto.
The youth are currently working with the county to draft an alcohol and tobacco ordinance.
It would require somebody who wants to drink in the park to get a permit, according to Bob Lerude, Director of Kern County Parks and Recreation.
Lerude said it would also enforce the rules at Weedpatch and Lamont Parks where the ordinance is already in effect. Smoking would also be limited to the parking lots.
“Here we have a lot of teenagers in the local communities of Rexland Acres, Greenfield, Lamont and Arvin stepping up to the plate and wanting to improve their local parks and communities,” said Lerude. “I think that’s a positive and bodes well for our future.”
The youth are also working with the county to come up with a master plan at the parks which includes making improvements like putting in walking path and picnic benches.
“This is our home, this is where we live and if no one else is making change then who else would,” said Yanez.
The youth will be presenting their plan to the Kern County Board of Supervisors sometime in November.
All BHC partners are invited to come and participate in our Family Festival Celebration on November 16th from 10am – 2pm at Sunset School in Weedpatch. In keeping with our carnival theme, we are asking that anyone participating with a booth bring some type “Edutainment” a fun family game or activity for our families to participate in, where they can also learn.
If you would like to have a booth at our event please complete the booth request form and return it to Angelica Munoz at amunoz@lesd.us or at 7839 Burgundy Ave, Lamont CA 93241.
We are also looking for participants in our talent show contest we will be hosting that day. So if you have a talent or know someone who would like to share their talent complete the contest participant form and return it to Angelica Munoz at amunoz@lesd.us or at 7839 Burgundy Ave. Lamont, CA 93241. See flyer for more information.
