Patterson stopped efforts to address a drinking water contaminant not because it was no longer an issue but because the city couldn’t afford remediation. Now residents say Patterson needs to do more to address their growing concerns.
Yolanda Magaña moved to Patterson four years ago. After buying her house but before moving in, she wanted to get to know her new neighborhood so she looked at community pages on Facebook. She came across a group that blamed the city’s water for an increase in cancer in the area.
“That’s when I learned about the water issues and I was like, ‘Oh no,’” Magaña said. She began to have second thoughts about moving to the area, but settled on installing a reverse osmosis system in her home to filter out hexavalent chromium (CR6) …