Sustainability

Creating and measuring long-term impact

The vending machine is designed to be a temporary solution for three years, so the project team has designed for all costs to be covered throughout this period, including machine equipment, site prep, installation, operations and maintenance, and ongoing water testing. The machine will be maintained by a certified water operator with specific schedule of activities to do to ensure that the machine is clean and functional. After the three years, the community can decide whether they want to continue using the machine or not. Ultimately, all partners want this project to be an interim solution, so also important that the community of Seville keep advocating to achieve a sustainable, long-term drinking water solution.

It is a priority of the project to be sustainable and affordable to the community of Seville, so the costs of operations and maintenance (O&M), including replacement parts, servicing provided by the water operator, and regular water quality testing for three years, which total about $6000, are planned to be covered in the grant.

Learnings

Knowledge of project and process for sharing

State funding can pose unexpected bureaucratic delays and funding obstacles that can affect the direction of the project.

This community vending machine was originally meant to be housed at the school parking lot, with the support of all project team partners. The school was going to partner with Rotary in order to fundraise for the costs of the project, but with the newly made funding made by CDPH, the project team decided to apply. This particular funding program of CDPH was designated for severely disadvantages with drinking water problems such as Seville to obtain an immediate source of interim safe drinking water – to be flexible in covering any costs, including O&M. However, once the application was submitted, the project was ruled ineligible because CDPH said that the funding program could not cover O&M costs due to the fact the funding was coming from Proposition 84 and therefore had prevailing wage restrictions. CWC sought clarification from CDPH in March, pointing out that the funding program came from two sources: Proposition 84 from CDPH and the Clean-up and Abatement Fund from the State Water Resources Control Board, which has no such restrictions. After several calls with CWC throughout the summer, CDPH determined that O&M could be covered through the Clean-up and Abatement portion of the emergency funding if the contaminants were anthropogenic (like nitrates), otherwise, communities would have to pursue leasing options to have O&M covered for the Prop.84 funding portion. Unfortunately, by the time that this issue was clarified, in October the school board leadership had changed and did not have the political will to support of housing of the vending machine on the school property. If there had not been this funding barrier, Seville would have had a safe source of interim water by now, but instead, the project has had to restart all over again to identify a different viable location – the Church property.

Impact

People Impacted: 350

People Getting Safe Drinking Water: 350

Seville is a small, disadvantaged community that comprises of about 74 households, predominantly low-income Latino farmworkers. Seville is on a public water system that has high nitrate contamination, and the public water system is currently in receivership by the County of Tulare.