Farm communities face contaminated water from manure, nitrates, records revea

Yakima County in Washington state, home to around 67 dairy farms, sits on aquifers contaminated by nitrates. In California's San Joaquin Valley, which grows nearly one-quarter of the nation's food, fertilizer and manure spread on farms' fields and orchards have contributed to unsafe nitrate levels in drinking water sources.The drinking water of millions of Americans living in or near farming communities across the country is contaminated by dangerous amounts of nitrates and coliform bacteria from fertilizer and manure widely used in agriculture, a News21 analysis of Environmental Protection Agency records shows. The records reveal that community water systems serving over 2 million people across the country were cited for excessive nitrate levels.Those records don't cover the millions of private wells that many Americans use, which are left vulnerable to pollution of shallow groundwater in agricultural areas.Many farmworkers who live in these communities still have to pay for the contaminated water coming from the faucet, as well as buying bottled water to drink. But the farmers who employ them don't agree with their concerns. "They say, 'Why are you complaining? You have jobs? We are giving you jobs. You eat because of us,' " said Irma Medellin, who works with Latino farmworkers in Tulare County to clean up the drinking water. "They contaminate our water, and we, the poor, are paying for water as if we were rich. And we are not rich. But we are paying the price of contaminated water."While the analysis shows 5,000 nitrate violations can largely be traced back to agricultural activity, 22,971 total coliform violations could be from either human or animal feces. However, in heavily farmed areas, much of the coliform bacteria can be attributed to manure.