Enforcing the Law in California

Individuals or companies who supply drinking water to 25 or more people for at least 60 days a year must meet federal standards of water quality. For years, EPA's San Francisco Office of Drinking Water Compliance and Enforcement has taken pains to make sure that small drinking water systems meet the standards. During the past year, the office focused on migrant labor camps' drinking water systems in California. Officials knew that migrant farm workers were especially vulnerable to environmental hazards, and they were concerned that the camps shared many, if not more, of the problems they'd found with small systems throughout California.

From a list provided by the state of more than 1,000 labor camps, EPA sorted out over 300 that might be operating drinking water systems as defined by the Safe Drinking Water Act. They were spread throughout 41 of California's 58 counties. Some of these camps, it was discovered, were no longer in existence; a few were served by larger, regulated public water systems.

Further investigation of the camps that were operating water systems meeting the definition of a small public water system revealed 191 to be in violation of the law. They served more than 8,500 people in 20 counties. Of the 191 systems in violation, EPA found that 141 were not recognized by the state as public water systems and,

as a result, weren't tracked or monitored for any potential violations. EPA found that most of these systems were not sampling their water sufficiently for contaminants. Some had often exceeded limits for coliform bacteria, and some exceeded limits for nitrates. The presence of coliform bacteria in drinking water indicates that organisms may be present that can cause diseases such as typhoid, cholera, infectious hepatitis, and dysentery. Coliform bacteria also can indicate that parasites are present. Nitrate, which derives from sewage, fertilizers, and feedlots, poses a threat of "blue baby syndrome," a potentially life-threatening anemic condition in babies up to six months of age.

More than one county contact warned that strict enforcement of the

Migrant farm workers

are especially vulnerable to environmental

hazards.

drinking water regulations might result in the closure of many labor camps, creating additional housing, welfare, and social burdens for county administrators, taxpayers, and camp residents. According to these contacts, labor camp owners have often chosen to close their camps rather than comply with regulations.

On September 6, 1991, EPA issued notices of violation to the 191 labor camp owners and the California Department of Health Services, Office of Drinking Water. The notices warned the owners either to come into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act or to face further

enforcement action and penalties. The maximum civil penalty is $25,000 per day per violation for each day a system is in violation.

With full cooperation from the state and counties, 49 systems are now reported to be in full compliance. Another 79 are in the process of permit application and/or conducting the required sampling under supervision from their counties. Nine labor camps have stopped operating, eight of them permanently, since September 1991. It is not clear how many of the closures were related to EPA's enforcement. The remaining systems were not actually public water systems due to misinformation, originally received from the counties, regarding numbers of people housed or length of occupancy.

EPA will continue to work with the state Office of Drinking Water and the affected counties to identify and ensure that all applicable migrant labor camp water systems are inventoried and monitored for compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act.

minority institutions. The MAI Task Force's action plan, issued in May 1991, is intended to support the capacity of MAI's to conduct environmental research, sponsor environmental fellows and interns, deliver scientifically trained personnel, and provide public education and outreach activities.

One broad initiative fostered by the MAI action plan was to build technical knowledge and support not only for students but for MAI faculty and mid-career minority professionals as well. In this connection, the task force stressed the importance of providing continued support to minority students as they progress in the educational pipeline from high school through graduate school. Early and sustained intervention is essential to develop the diverse scientific background students need to prepare for environmental

careers.

Morgan State photo.

A program to address this "pipeline" problem was piloted in summer 1991. The Coop-Progression program, a modified version of the Office of Personnel Management's Cooperative Education program, recruits 10th and 11th grade minority students to be employed part-time at EPA while receiving training in science and math from a local minority institution. On their graduation from high school, EPA pays up to $5,000 a year college tuition and employs the students as co-ops during undergraduate and graduate training. Noncompetitive conversion to federal employment is offered at the completion of college. This program is being expanded to include EPA's laboratories and regional offices during 1992.

Retaining minority students in undergraduate and graduate environmental programs requires long-term financial and mentoring

support. The MAI Task Force recommended expanding the undergraduate scholarship program and creating a new graduate fellowship program for students from HBCUs and HACUS pursuing advanced degrees in environmental areas. These new multi-year $20,000 per year

fellowships will be awarded in spring

1992.

Faculty from minority academic institutions are encouraged to

participate in EPA's Faculty Fellows program, where they may spend four to six months in research facilities working on priority environmental projects. The objective is for faculty, enriched by this experience, to return to their home institutions to continue relevant research and to mentor and encourage students in environmental studies. This program accommodates 15 to 20 faculty from HBCU and HACU campuses a year.

Another new program is a two-year Environmental Science Management Training program based at Tufts University. The program offers midcareer minority professionals an opportunity to earn a master's degree in environmental science management and to gain work experience at EPA. Eight participants are currently enrolled in this program, which is in its first year.

A second broad initiative stemming from the MAI Task Force action plan is to build research capacities at minority institutions. From its review, the task force found that past funding levels for research assistance at MAIS had not been adequate to build research activities in environmental

Steps at EPA

The environmental equity movement has made environmental careers more attractive and more relevant to minorities.

areas, to develop curricula in sciences and engineering, or to encourage faculty participation in these fields. Recommended remedies included increasing research dollars to MAIS, providing technical assistance in the development of research grants and environmental curricula, and purchasing "state-of-the-art" instrumentation through a proposed new equipment acquisitions program. For example, laboratory devices such as ultracentrifuges, advanced computer technology, and lasers would help make MAIS more competitive for research funding.

Strengthening the

environmental-science research center capability at minority institutions was definitely a challenge. Prior to 1990, there was only one EPA-funded research center at an MAI: at Howard University in Washington, DC, as part of a Hazardous Substance Research Center Consortium with the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. Since the action plan was issued and due primarily to a 1991 Congressional appropriations bill-two new Academic Centers of Excellence have been established. Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, has a research/training center where faculty and students can participate in Superfund emergency remedial-response research. Funds. have been appropriated for a second center at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to begin a statistical research component in hazardous waste research. And funds have been appropriated for a consortium of the University of Texas at El Paso, Arizona State University, New Mexico State University, and the University of Utah to study air, water, and hazardous waste problems along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The task force also realized the

importance of an effective recruitment strategy, and this is reflected in a third broad initiative. While more and more predominately majority schools are recruiting minority students and faculty into their science and engineering programs, HBCUs and HACUS still graduate more than half the minorities who receive college degrees. Therefore, these institutions are viewed as the best resources for increasing minorities' access to environmental careers and research opportunities.

EPA has strengthened its Agency-wide recruitment strategy by establishing a National Recruitment Advisory Committee. One of the recommendations of this committee was to establish college relations programs on several HBCU and HACU campuses. Senior EPA officials are now serving as Campus Executives, coordinating recruitment activities, and fostering linkages between these adopted institutions and EPA.

As part of its new campus-relations program, EPA initiated a Memorandum of Understanding with Morgan State University in Baltimore. This comprehensive agreement encourages personnel exchanges, curriculum development in environmental areas, research support, technical seminars, etc. The Morgan State program serves as a model for other MAI/EPA cooperative arrangements.

Successful environmental programs at MAIS can help entice minority students to enter environmental fields. Moreover, the environmental equity movement has made environmental careers more attractive and more relevant to minorities. A recent survey conducted by the Panos Institute found that "environment-related issues have become a high priority among culturally diverse communities because the movement takes a more holistic approach by integrating the

environment into a broader agenda that emphasizes social justice and equity issues . . . ." Professor Robert Bullard, author of Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality, explaining why black minorities have joined environmental grass-root groups in record numbers, states, "Black communities, because of their economic and political

vulnerability, are routinely targeted for the siting of noxious facilities, locally unwanted land uses and environmental hazards .... For blacks this is a life-or-death issue.”

Just possibly, MAI college students could serve as role models in their communities and perhaps involve high-school and junior-high-school inner city youths in environmental initiatives, thus fostering an even younger generation of future environmentalists who have a sense of environmental ethics and responsibility for the community. Students concerned about the health of their communities could be motivated to learn the skills necessary to take air and water samples and to help monitor nearby industrial facilities. Many MAI students are products of

environmentally troubled communities and have a special cultural sensitivity to these communities' concerns. They have great potential to be employees of public/private environmental organizations or to be future environmental policy and decision makers with a keen understanding of community sensitivities on environmental issues.

In short, supporting minority academic institutions by enhancing the knowledge and skills of their students and faculty, building their research capabilities in environmental areas, and having an effective recruitment program will help meet future demands for a technical workforce. □

THE U.S. COLONIAS:
A TARGET FOR AID

Border Shantytowns Are Separate But Unequal

by Jack Lewis

W

a

elcome to the Weslaco colonia in Hidalgo County, Texas, 30 miles upriver from Brownsville, a city of 125,000 people, and an equal distance down the Rio Grande from McAllen, town of 100,000. Weslaco itself has a population of 25,000 within its city limits, which currently exclude the 2,500 Hispanic Americans who live mostly without urban amenities in a fairly typical "colonia"--a Spanish term for a neighborhood or community-on the outskirts of town. Seventy percent of the colonia inhabitants live without access to any utility-neither fresh water nor sewage hookups, neither gas nor electric

(Lewis is an assistant editor of EPA Journal.)

power-and their community (largely flat without drainage infrastructure) has unpaved roads that flood frequently, swamping outhouses, cesspools, and primitive septic tanks. Houses are self-built shelters constructed of scrap lumber and other shoddy supplies, and though tiny, they are home to large families of mostly Spanish-speaking farm workers, who face seasonal unemployment rates as high as 20 percent and unnaturally high incidences of dysentery and hepatitis A.

Texas now has laws to prevent new colonias from cropping up, but the existing ones-created by

Typical colonias house comes equipped with outhouse privy.

unscrupulous land developers-are still an eyesore and a burden on the conscience of Texas and the nation. For decades these unincorporated rural slums near the Rio Grande have provided substandard housing to tens of thousands of people, most of whom are U.S. citizens whose families have been in this country for generations. Offering no paved roads, little safe drinking water, few sewer or power lines, no fire protection facilities, and only a few community services, these unplanned, unhealthy shantytowns exist today in a shadowland far removed from mainstream America.

Colonias residents have always been too poor to take the initiative on the problems just listed, and the counties in which they live have also been too poor-or too prejudiced-to care. Nearby cities have been all too willing to wash their hands of colonias problems, saying, "They fall outside our jurisdiction." Finally, at long last, state government has intervened in a big way, and so has the federal government.

On February 25, 1992, EPA released a comprehensive plan for the cleanup of pollution along the entire U.S.-Mexico border that will involve an expenditure of well over $1 billion. over the next several years by the United States, Mexico, the border states, and private industry. The federal government's share in fiscal year 1993 will be approximately $241 million, of which $75 million has been earmarked for drinking water and sewage disposal improvements in the Texas and New Mexico colonias. EPA will administer $50 million for sewage treatment improvements in these colonias, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Administration devotes $25 million to improving water supply infrastructure. Commenting on EPA's task in the colonias, EPA Administrator William K. Reilly said, "I don't think there are higher risks to health anywhere in the United States than in these unsewered communities .... The health of thousands of people is at risk in the colonias due to the absence of

environmental safeguards that most Americans take for granted. We intend to correct this."

The state of Texas has already made a major commitment of its own. In