The Kern County city of Arvin has received funding to drill a new drinking water well to serve its nearly 21,000 residents.
The EPA has agreed to provide the city with $2.5 million in funding for the well, which will replace an existing well that's polluted with arsenic and is located adjacent to a Superfund site. That site is home to extensive soil contamination from herbicides and pesticides left behind by an agricultural chemical company that operated there in the mid-twentieth century.
The EPA funding comes after many years of community advocacy, following temporary solutions like water bottles and water filters on school drinking fountains.
