When There's Arsenic In The Water, but 'We Have Nowhere To Go' | Thermal, CA
July 31st, 2022 - The New York Times
'In California’s Eastern Coachella Valley, some of the state’s poorest workers toil in fields and groves of date palms. These workers and their families live in mobile home parks, which have for decades made up the region’s primary affordable housing supply. But as demand for housing has rippled across the state, they have been left with fewer and fewer options.
Many of those farmworkers have found themselves at Oasis Mobile Home Park, a place whose name belies a troubled reality — where many residents said they didn’t know about the water when they moved. In 2019, the United States Environmental Protection Agency found levels of arsenic in the park’s water as high as almost 10 times the allowable limit.
'Cecilia Cruz works in the grape vineyards, and has lived at Oasis Mobile Home Park for 16 years with her husband, Pedro Cruz, a construction worker. They have joined a lawsuit against the park’s owners over the conditions. The couple own their trailer, which is in good condition, and they don’t want to leave it behind. The Cruzes hope the county will help them move out of Oasis to a piece of land they are planning to buy.
But their urgency to get out of the park is rising.
Their daughter, Daleyda, was born last September, three months before her due date. The baby was hospitalized until December. Mrs. Cruz said she was concerned about how the water would affect her unborn child during her pregnancy; her doctor warned her against accidentally ingesting the water while she bathed. Now, Mrs. Cruz heats bottled water before she bathes Daleyda.
The couple believe it’s important to leave Oasis for the sake of their family’s health. “We’ve lived for three years knowing about the water,” Mr. Cruz said. “Regretfully, we really don’t have another place to go.”'
'Gisela Santiago had been living in a small trailer in a park near Oasis Mobile Home Park, with her husband and eight other people, until they got their run-down mobile home in Oasis for free seven years ago.
All they had to do was make some repairs, and pay utilities and rent for the space. She said the offer was too good to pass up. But she and her husband, Pedro, were not prepared for the toxic water and short circuits, which charred their trailer’s walls.
A family doctor told the couple to not let their three boys drink or come in contact with the water. But sometimes, before leaving for school, the boys brush their teeth in a hurry and rinse with water from the faucet, instead of clean bottled water that their mother leaves by the bathroom sink.
The family was placed on a waiting list this year to relocate to Mountain View Estates — a newer mobile home community with paved streets and a tidy park. Mrs. Santiago said she was running out of patience waiting for the county to help her family.
“They don’t repair anything here,” Mrs. Santiago said. “The water is contaminated, the trailer is too small and deteriorated, and one of these days the short circuits are going to burn the trailer — it’s just too much to live with every day.”'
'For the last 16 years, Eudelia Ochoa Gutierrez has been living at Oasis Mobile Home Park after relocating with her husband from another park nearby. But shortly after the couple moved into Oasis, their son, Pascual Campos Ochoa, started to have kidney problems.
Moving out of the area, his mother said, would disrupt Pascual’s dialysis treatment and put his life at risk.
Last year, the area’s State Assembly member, Eduardo Garcia, and the nonprofit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability were among those who helped the county secure a $30 million state grant aimed at helping to move out residents and to build new affordable housing. But the effort to decide what to do with the money has been slow and contentious.'
'Months after Marisela Torres and her family moved out of Oasis Mobile Home Park into Mountain View Estates she still bursts into tears at the mention of her former home.
While the family lived at Oasis, Mrs. Torres’s son, Fernando Ortiz, 17, was diagnosed with kidney cancer.
They had moved to Oasis after being forced to relocate from Indio, where they had lived for seven years. The couple did not qualify for low-income housing because they are undocumented, so they rented a small, run-down three-bedroom trailer at Oasis.
They were unaware of the problems at the park when they moved in, and the family of farmworkers was desperate. Fernando’s sister, Stephanie Ortiz, 20, said the family would not have moved into the park if they had known about the problems with the water.
Last year, Fernando had kidney surgery, and he is still undergoing treatments, the outcome of which is uncertain. “I thank God for getting us out of Oasis,” Mrs. Torres said.’'
'Last year, the area’s State Assembly member, Eduardo Garcia, and the nonprofit Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability were among those who helped the county secure a $30 million state grant aimed at helping to move out residents and to build new affordable housing. But the effort to decide what to do with the money has been slow and contentious.'