Racism robbed this historically black California town of its water. Now, they’re developing water of their own
[Valeria] Contreras lives in Allensworth, a small town of about 500 people an hour’s drive north of Bakersfield, in California’s Central Valley. She runs her own catering company, and in her spare time she is also the general manager of the Allensworth Community Services District, which oversees the town’s water supply. Back in February, Contreras had no idea why the water had stopped flowing. And it was her job to fix it. … Clean, safe and affordable drinking water is considered a human right under state law, but nearly a million residents don’t have access to it. Like Contreras, many of them live in the Central Valley, a patchwork of desert scrub and irrigated farmland that’s twice the size of Massachusetts and produces 25% of the nation’s food supply.