When Cynthia Ruiz turns on her kitchen faucet, she hears a slight squeak before cloudy fluid bursts out of the spout. The water in her Central Valley town of East Orosi is clean enough most of the time to wash dishes, flush toilets, and take showers, but it’s not safe to swallow. Drinking water is trucked in twice a month.
“There are times where the water is so bad you can’t even wash dishes,” said Ruiz, who is advised not to drink the tap water, which is laden with nitrates — runoff from orange and nectarine fields surrounding the town of roughly 400. “We need help to fix our water problem.”
