Safe water to flow at migrant camp

Housing authority makes deal with fish and game department

By Corey Pride

When farmworkers and their families arrive at the Rafael L. Silva Migrant Family Housing Center in May they will see clean water flow through the facility's pipes for the first time since it opened three years ago.

Renise Ferrario, executive director of the Housing Authority of Merced County, said a deal has been struck with the California Department of Fish and Game that allows the migrant center to use its nearby six-inch pipeline.

Ferrario said it's nice to be able to use Fish and Game's pipeline because shipping in bottled water to the center "got quite expensive."

The housing authority was spending $30,000 per harvest season to supply the 49-unit migrant center with water.

The funding for the water ration comes from the state's Office of Migrant Services. The housing authority also receives money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and has its board members appointed by the Merced County Board of Supervisors.

The center, which is barely outside of Los Baños' city limits on Henry Miller Road, has a well located on it that supplied the facility with unacceptable amounts of arsenic, copper and radionuclides, according to the Merced County Health Department. The water was deemed unsafe to drink just before the migrant camp opened in May of 2006.

In July of last year Supervisor Jerry O'Banion said the center was allowed to open because the migrant housing was badly needed. He said while the migrants were waiting for the center to be constructed they were spending harvest season--May to November--living on Pacheco Boulevard across from España's Restaurant. O'Banion said crossing the street, which is a highway, presented a danger to the migrant families.

The Housing Authority spent years talking to Fish and Game, trying to convince the agency to let it hook into its pipeline. Fish and Game officials said their pipeline was built in the 1970s, is six inches and only provides service to two bunkhouses and five employee units. At the time, they wanted the state fire marshal's office to inspect it before the migrant center could be hooked up to it.

On Dec. 19 a memorandum of understanding was signed by the two sides, allowing the migrant camp to be supplied water through the pipeline.

The use of Fish and Game's pipeline is a temporary solution until the center can get its own. The housing authority is seeking a state grant that, under Proposition 84, would provide funds for a foot-long pipeline that would connect to Los Baños' water supply.

Martha Guzman-Aceves of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation is representing the migrants on the water issue. She remains skeptical of the agreement.

"That's going to be great to see if it actually gets connected," she said. "It's been three years."