Safe drinking water for children in Planada and Le Grand!

 It's a sign of our fragmented times that children in these rural schools should need special clean water dispensers at the same time as the same communities plan for more growth. If you don't have enough clean water for the children of your community, how can you in good conscience plan for more growth? Planners, of course, will argue how much worse it would all be if the new growth weren't planned because planners are pawns in the real great game of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate.1. 2 .3.
Conscience doesn't have a thing to do with it. It is about bureaucratic and corporate schedules fermenting away in their own separate silos. The people involved are just doing their jobs to support their families.
But it really doesn't matter how polluted a local aquifer becomes as it is increasingly overdrawn by new drought-resisting deep wells for almond orchards (the concerns of other industries and bureaucracies), because you can always treat the water (yet another agency) and increase the monthly water bill right up to the point -- well past what the present farmworking residents can afford -- where it is cheaper to bathe in bottled water and Planada will be renamed "UC Merced Sierra Vista." -- blj
3-10-17
Merced Sun-Star
Planada, Le Grand youngsters have new access to safe drinking water Thaddeus Miller
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/local/environment/article137822038.html
 
A trio of nonprofits recently teamed to put new water bottle-filling stations in Le Grand and Planada schools, according to a news release.
The Agua4All campaign to provide and promote safe drinking water in rural communities brought the stations to the schools with help from Dignity Health, the California Endowment and Rural Community Assistance Corp., the release said.
Students celebrated the new stations Thursday with several local leaders. Speakers encouraged the nearly 300 students in attendance to choose water over sugary drinks that can lead to health problems such as type II diabetes and obesity, the release said.
The Agua4All program has installed nearly 200 water bottle stations in California schools and communities so far, according to the release. Along with the stations, Agua4All staff members provide outreach to promote the consumption of tap water, as well as dispel myths about it.
Founded in 1978, the Rural Community Assistance Corp. provides training, technical and financial resources, and advocacy so communities can achieve their goals, according to the news release.
The corporation provides a range of community and economic development services and lending to support local efforts. For more on Agua4All, go to www.rcac.org/environmental/agua4all.
 
NOTE:
(1) DRAFT Environmental Impact Report 2016 Planada Community Plan SCH #2016031032; http://web2.co.merced.ca.us/pdfs/env_docs/eir/Planada-Draft-EIR-Dec-2016...
(2) Le Grand Community Plan; http://www.co.merced.ca.us/index.aspx?NID=1801
(3) Reply to a local planning official, Badlands Journal,  December 21, 2004; http://badlandsjournal.com/2008-10-14/005618