San Bernardino County, West Valley Water District Director Kelvin Moore was shocked to see the impacts of Salton Sea contamination on the nearby community after his group of 16 local Latinoelected officials from across California toured the Salton Sea on January 20. They witnessed thepolluted and shrinking body of water while inhaling the same arsenic and selenium—the smell of hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg stench)—plaguing the area's farm workers and other low-wage families. After walking along the shoreline, the public officials who belong to WaterEducation for Latino Leaders (WELL) questioned Salton Sea Authority Executive Director G.Patrick O’Dowd over severe challenges to the local ecosystem and residents.
Rather than just hear presentations, WELL’s practice is to conduct interviews with water experts, allowing its members to extract information pertinent to them and their communities.
"I had not been to the Salton Sea in over a decade and seeing the conditions saddened me, "Director Moore observed. “I was shocked that to this day there has been no feasibility study to confirm if this area is unsafe."
Later that day, the Latino officials—mayors, city council members, school and water board members—visited a nearby Coachella Valley mobile home park suffering from unsafe groundwater wells beset by arsenic and other contaminants such as bacteria from leaking septic systems. They interviewed a USDA State Community Planner. Altogether, the officials spent three days in the region, from Friday through Sunday.
WELL is a non-profit statewide organization with a 12-year track record of educating 1,300 locally elected leaders from Latino communities that are woefully underrepresented in California water policy-making circles. The WELL delegation is the first of two cohorts of WELL members who are undertaking concentrated on-site, in-person educational and training courses during 2024. WELL seeks to involve and empower the Latino community, which represents 40percent of California’s population but less than two percent of elected water officials.