Clean water shouldn’t depend on where you live

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OPINION — Turn on the tap in San Jose, and the water is something you don’t think twice about. That’s not the case in parts of the Central Valley, where drinking water is too dangerous to drink.

This contrast shouldn’t exist: California declared a Human Right to Water in 2012. Yet hundreds of thousands of Californians lack access to safe drinking water. This disparity reflects decades of failure by the State Water Resources Control Board to stop agricultural nitrogen pollution from fertilizer overuse at the source.

Nitrogen is a key ingredient in fertilizer, but too much of it ends up in groundwater and drinking water sources as nitrate, a contaminant linked to serious health risks. For infants, nitrate exposure can cause blue baby syndrome, a potentially fatal condition.

Nitrate contamination is also linked to higher risks of colon, thyroid, and ovarian cancers in adults. Communities in the Central Valley are far more likely to rely on wells contaminated with nitrates.

Drinking water is only part of the story. Nitrogen runoff also poisons rivers and lakes, fueling toxic algal blooms that sicken children and kill fish. In the air, excess nitrogen worsens asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Scientists and state officials have warned about agricultural nitrogen pollution since the 1960s. California law clearly requires the State Water Board to regulate nitrogen pollution and protect water quality.

Yet for decades, the Board has failed to set enforceable numeric limits on nitrogen pollution.

Instead, the Board has relied on the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program, which focuses on education, monitoring, and reporting rather than enforceable limits. Unsurprisingly, nitrogen pollution has continued to spread.

The Board has repeatedly delayed action on numeric limits even when presented with clear evidence that numeric limits are feasible and proven.

Those delays continue today. At a recent State Water Board meeting, an agricultural expert panel concluded there is sufficient information to set limits that would protect drinking water in two agriculturally intensive regions. In other words, the Board has enough evidence to act now.

And yet, it set no deadlines for next steps.

This is what continued inaction looks like: more study, no timelines, and no enforceable protections for communities living with pollution.

Numeric limits set clear, science-based caps on how much nitrogen can be applied to fields or allowed to leach into groundwater. Without them, pollution continues. With them, the Board can measure progress and hold polluters accountable.

Numeric limits work. Other countries have used them to reduce nitrate pollution while maintaining productive farms. Even in California, one regional board paired numeric limits with timelines for protecting drinking water quality.

But the State Water Board prevented those numeric limits from taking effect, delaying an effort that would have protected people and ecosystems.

Every year of delay has consequences: more toxic algal blooms, more families forced to rely on bottled water, and more preventable health risks.

Clean water should not depend on where you live.

The State Water Board is at a defining moment. It can continue a pattern of delay, or it can finally act with urgency and set numeric limits that protect public health.

One of us is preparing for a career in medicine, while the other is a practicing physician. We know we cannot treat our way out of this problem.

Some of the biggest drivers of health, including safe drinking water, are shaped by policy, not what happens in a doctor’s office.

Nitrogen pollution is a preventable problem. The State Water Board can stop it now or keep pushing the costs and consequences onto communities, our healthcare system, and future generations.

We shouldn’t have to wait for treatment when prevention is possible.

Ellen Wu is a UC San Diego graduate from San Jose and a member of San Diego Physicians for Clean Air who has worked on climate and public health issues. Christine James, M.D., M.Sc., is an allergist-immunologist with UC San Diego Health and a member of the Public Health Advisory Council for Climate Action Campaign and Climate Health Now.