Clean Water Conundrum: Why is Safe Drinking Water Not Equal in California?

 In the Fall semester of 2022 at UC Berkeley, I was enrolled in a water and wastewater systems class designed for civil engineers. I am not a civil engineer. Therefore my understanding of some of the concepts being taught were obscured if not outright misunderstood by my lack of knowledge. I asked for clarifications when I could. And even when I couldn't, I researched my way to a rudimentary understading.  Thank you Google. 

This course was in its trial phase and our class was the first to have taken it. The guinea pigs. The class itself was full of blueprints, math worksheets, and never ending spreadsheets. There were also field trips to the mecca where every flush makes it's pilgrimage (AKA the waste water treatment plant),  the San Pablo Reservoir high in the beautiful Oakland hills, and the nestled water pumps in El Cerrito neighborhoods and were much more enjoyable.  I struggled through the math, but thoroughly enjoyed the class. 

The Methodology 

I conducted observations via note taking on field trips to various water treatment plants, as well as observations via note taking in class and during labs. 

Taking this course rerouted the way I had previously thought about water managment. In fact, I never really thought about it until there was a flood or fire and the lights and water were shut off.  To some degree, we take these things for granted in our cushy American ways.  

What I found below the surface, quite literally, is a meticulous system of pipes interwoven all throughout the East Bay. Tap water became more than the product of a faucet maneuver. Tap water is regulations, treatment processes, and a testement of a regions public health policy.

Unleash The Waterworks

Context: For my field research I went on a class field trip to the East Bay Municipal Utility District water treatment plant in El Sobrante. The date was 09-23-2022.

I start out the morning in a rush from my apartment to Hearst Mining Circle. It’s no easy feat, I live on the exact opposite corner of Berkeley’s campus, tucked away on a Shattuck and Haste. Not to mention the incline. Not to mention my backpack loaded with books. Not to mention what feels like a ten ton laptop and endless campus hills.

 But I’m no quitter and at 11 am sharp, the white bus pulls into the bend and we file in, printouts in hand. An injury waiver (mildly alarming), a covid-symptom check, and a EBMUD sponsored informational pamphlet detailing the water-treatment process we’d soon behold are passed out. Exciting. I take a spot in the very far back. 

The campus rolls by and I lose track of time listening to music, peering into car windows from my steel and rubber high horse, and suddenly we’re in the town of El Sobrante. 

 El Sobrante is a small city tucked into some hills in the northeast. Trees and little convenience shops litter the main avenue we’re driving on. Old and quaint. 

We take a turn into a residential area. The bus barely fits. Then, like a big and noisy neighbor, the El Sobrante plant is nestled in with the surrounding homes. I’m gathering my things; pens, notebook, headphones, as the security guard smiles kindly at us and throws up a peace sign and the gate. 

We file out of the bus and walk from the dirt and gravel parking lot up to the main building. There's chatter among my classmates and instructors, I chat with a classmate whose telling me she lost her handout already. She takes a photo of mine.

 We are met by the staff, two men in sunglasses who I miss the names of, and a lady also donning shades. It is bright outside so I squint. I realize the necessity of their shades. It is not an intimidation technique.

 I recognize the first man, A, from a previous guest lecture he gave a week or two ago in my class. The other man, B, is new to me but is an established figure at the company he says. The woman, C, utters a brief hello and by a mysterious force, or a perhaps an unheard walkie talkie, takes off to tend to something urgent. Like Batwoman.

We begin the tour in a room segregated by glass walls. This is the ozone generator. Noisy and very metal. We move behind the glass into the room and the humming grows louder, yet no trace of water is evident. 

Instead, there’s the inorganic juxtaposition of the metallic ozone cylinders and rigid metal pipes lining the ceiling. We look into the cylinders through a porthole and I see a pair of tiny blue mechanical eyes peering back at me. A function of the machine. The ozone generator continues to hum as A tells us its importance of the machine. It is a water purification system EBMUD uses to rid water of harmful bacteria and pathogens. Most of the chemistry talk doesn't make sense to me. I look around and see a mix of puzzled faces like mine as well as some civil engineer students grinning and scribbling as fast as they can. I do however understand the reverence for the ozone machine. It has revolutionized the water sanitation game.  Ozone is interspersed into water and oxidizes it which in turn negates bacteria and certain metal contaminants. 

The tour continues, still no sight of water. We enter a corporate office-looking room that is significantly quieter. A relief. This is a graveyard of sorts: old machinery (replaced by the shiny new expensive ozone generator), blueprints the length of a toddler, and various unlabeled boxes lay around.

We move outside and the sun thaws me out; it was unreasonably cold in there I realize. I look around and there in the distance, water!  Water is shooting out of several man-made geysers at least 4 feet high. I’m ecstatic. 

As we walk I ask C, who has returned to us unheard, if that's the aeration process which she confirms. Aeration is crucial when treating water from the San Pablo reservoir. 

Because the reservoir is so deep, water beyond a few feet from the surface becomes anoxic, starved of oxygen, which in turn invites all kinds of nasty and hazardous life to form. Anoxic water is responsible for blue and green algae blooms which have proved fatal for unsuspecting hikers and dogs alike. 

The process of aeration is by far my favorite, not only aesthetically pleasing, it also mimics the ocean smell. It’s the hydrogen sulfide B explains. Again the chemistry surpasses me but I savor the smell. 

Our group keeps moving as we come up to a metal walkway where the second step of the purification process takes place. Flocculation. From what I gathered, it's the equivent of churning milk for the butter process.  This process is characterized by two large parallel pools with large paddles lurking beneath the surface like sharks.  The paddle is elusive, explains B, but a few of my classmates and I peer eagerly over the edge to try and catch a glimpse. There! A classmate shouts and sure enough a large metal bar passes by. Like a dolphin or a whale sighting.  I watch the paddle recede dipping out of sight and turn to share my whale sighting remark  only to realize the group is gone. 

I catch up with the rest of the group who are now looking at a pool of settled water. This water is awaiting further chemical treatment. It's a gym swimming pool size with what looks like shower heads spewing out water. The sound is soothing and relaxes me. It’s almost like being by a creek. 

I grew up spending afternoons trekking down to our local creek and playing in the mud. 

Here A and B explain the importance of chemically treating water. Some of the chemicals mentioned shock me; ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine… They sound like the last thing you want in water you drink. But as I think to raise my hand to complain, B assures that the chemicals are added in such moderation it scarcely harms you. In fact, a lack of chlorination would result in something far worse, like cholera. Here the ozone from the fancy ozone machine finally enters the water. Apparently it flows in through a pipe at the bottom of the pool but I don’t see it. I take their word for it. We all do right? 

The tour ends and we walk to a large cement platform engraved into the surrounding dirt. We circle around. Apparently this is the top of a chamber in which water flows through and is further chemically treated before splitting like veins into the cities. We can't see the process because the chamber has to be pressurized correctly or a "big boom" will happen, explains A. Finally, Layman's terms! I crouch down in an effort to hear anything but considering its a couple feet of concrete thick, it's futile. We stand around, exhausted and sun-stroked. A few concluding questions and remarks are exchanged. I ask where the water from San Pablo, a large reservoir in the area, is coming from, an aqueduct? C answers that question: a tunnel several hundred feet long and thick enough to drive a truck in is nestled under San Pablo Dam road. The tunnel utilizes its hilly environment and has gravity deposit water in a holding pool in the east part of the facility. That amazes me. All underground and all efficient. And with that, we make our way back to the bus and head back to Berkeley. I imagine we’re driving over the massive tunnel as we pass San Pablo Dam road on the freeway. 

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this field trip was witnessing  the control of water: the machinery, engineering, and infrastructure that govern its flow and distribution. In particular, smelling the “ocean” from the geysers reminded me of water’s greatest form: unbridled and mildly terrifying. Uncontrollable. The anthropogenic control of water is a sign of human ingenuity and resourcefulness. I love mankind.

What also resonates with me is the extensive and expensive feat of water management. The systems we build to control and manage water made me realize the real-world limitations of dealing with water crises. It's a process which can’t be easily changed. It’s easy to critique water utility companies when incidents like Flint happen but running a water filtration site is no easy job either.

Conversations With Mike

I interviewed Michael Ambrose who is the Manager of Macitence and Construction at EBMUD. Mike has a department of about 600 people and they do all of the maintenance and construction for the water distribution system. Pipes that are in the streets, the services that go to each customer,  and water meters were all maintained by his team. He also oversees a team of people that maintain EBMUD’s work fleet of about 1300 vehicles. A busy man. 

I was curious to know what worried him most about California’s current water situation. He says it's the variability of changes to our climate. 

From a supply and quality standpoint, less frequent supply of rain, snow, and atmospheric rivers are huge factors. Atmospheric rivers and wildfires stir up a lot of dirt and turbidity that many existing water treatment plants aren’t capable of treating and a less safe supply is threat to public health.  This worries him, and it worries me too. 

Closing Thoughts

Water inequality from a systemic perspective, stems from many places, the complex process of water treatment being only one contributing factor. Climate, weather, price, and even the technology in the industry play a huge part in the quality of drinking water. 

  On another field trip to a lab funded by UC Berkeley and EBMUD, we saw million dollar equipment such as an earthquake simulator machine shipped all the way from Cornell and 20 feet of bright blue IPVC pipe.  IPVC is a cutting-edge version of PVC from South Korea which is set to revolutionize water infrastructure. It’s chemically more safe than lead pipes and cheaper than cast-iron pipes. 

During World War II, metal was rationed for war efforts, and the structural integrity, durability, protection from leeching,  and general safety of pipes all around suffered. Engineers were pressured to make pipes as thin as possible. As a result, less structurally sound pipes were placed all around cities leading to corrosion and seepage of harmful contaminates into the water in the pipes. 

IPVCpipe could change that.  Yet will everywhere have access to implement this technology? Who gets access to this technology first?  Pipe replacement is done by a cost-benefit analysis, not on the basis of race or income.  Is access to clean water is barricaded by technology development and the way institutions operate? Will communities of color see IPVC in their neighborhoods before affluent neighborhoods do?  Is it likely lack of higher education will affect the ability of communities to advocate for technology like IPVC? 

And the issue of climate change. The big bad monster hiding in the closet waiting to strike. More wildfires. More floods. More droughts. The issue is compounded by old and underfunded water treatment sites ill-equipped to deal with increased turbidity from extreme weather, putting more groups at risk than others. How do we ensure those communities get new equipment?

Water management as an intricate affair comprised of external factors, some within our control and some entirely out of our control. I do not know the answer to these questions yet if we do not delibrately make sure innovations in water management are equally distributed to all,  health inequalities will be perpetuated,  

Sources:

Balazas, Carolina et al. “Social Disparities in Nitrate-Contaminated Drinking Water in California’s San Joaquin Valley.” Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol.119, No.9, September 2011, pp. 1272-1278.

 Blake, Sarah Brown. “Spatial Relationships among Dairy Farms, Drinking Water Quality, and Maternal-Child Health Outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley”. Public Health Nursing, Vol. 31, No.6, pp. 429-499. 

Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. Critical Race Theory (Third Edition): An Introduction. NYU Press, 2017. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1ggjjn3. 

Holmes, Seth. “ESPM 162A Health Medicine, Society and the Environment.” University of California Berkeley, 08 November 2022. Lecture.  

McBride, Justin. “ Mutual Water Systems and the Formation of Racial Inequality in Los Angeles County.” Water Alternatives, Vol.15, Issue 1, 2022.  

Patel, Anisha I et al. “Sociodemographic characteristics and beverage intake of children who drink tap water.” American journal of preventive medicine vol. 45,1 (2013): 75-82. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2013.04.001

Raphael D, Bryant T. Emerging Themes in Social Determinants of Health Theory and Research. International Journal of Health Services. 2022, doi:10.1177/00207314221109515.

Schell, Christopher J. et al. “The Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences of Systemic Racism in Urban Environments.” Science, Vol.369, No. 6510, 18 September 2020. 

Wallis, Michael J., Michael R. Ambrose, and Clifford C. Chan. "Climate Change: Charting a Water Course in an Uncertain Future." American Water Works Association.Journal, vol. 100, no. 6, 2008, pp. 70-79. ProQuest,