Publication: Bay City News 

UCLA Expert: Lara Cushing: Assistant Professor, UCLA Center for Occupational & Environmental Health; Assistant Professor, UCLA Department of Environmental Health Sciences; Affiliate, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability 

Synopsis: Highlighting new research co-conducted by UCLA and UC Berkeley, this article discusses how thousands of Californians currently lack access to safe drinking water — their sources instead contain high levels of toxic chemicals. The article also features the new online Drinking Water Tool (drinkingwatertool.communitywatercenter.org/) released by the researchers, which the public can use to discover where its water comes from and the location of contaminated sites. 

UCLA News: Lara Cushing is quoted discussing the justice concerns associated with this problem. “I think a lot of people might be surprised to learn that, given how wealthy the state of California is, we still don't have universal access to clean drinking water. For the three chemical contaminants that we looked at, we found that places with a higher proportion of people of color experienced greater levels of drinking water contamination.” 

Read more at Bay City News.