Committee for a Better Alpaugh, Alpaugh

“I’m a fighter for my community.”

Sandra Meraz moved to the San Joaquin Valley 45 years ago. Her concerns grew for her community when in the early 1970s when the Western Farms chemical plant opened in her rural community of Alpaugh without any public notice or community input. “No one knew what could actually be done about the issue,” she recalls. In 1990, several local farmers proposed building a toxic waste incinerator on the outskirts of Alpaugh, and this goaded Sandra into action. Working with Linda MacKay, she and others (including Luke Cole of CRPE and Bradley Angel, then with Greenpeace) helped rally Alpaugh residents against the incinerator – and won. Sandra learned first hand what it took to keep polluters out of her community: a lot of hard work. The Alpaugh community group Endangered Species was born out of that struggle.

Sandra served on the Alpaugh Unified School Board until she was appointed to the Tulare County Water Works District #1 Board in 1998. She joined the CRPE Delano Advisory Board in 1999, and became its president in 2004. She is a founder of Rural Families Endangered, and a co-founder of the Committee for Better Alpaugh. She has also volunteered with the Food Link food bank for the past 30 years.

Sandra has been active on water issues in Alpaugh for the past seven years. She currently serves as Board Secretary/Treasurer to the Alpaugh Joint Powers Authority, an entity formed by the mandated merger of two local water districts (the Alpaugh Irrigation District and the Tulare County Water Works District #1).

Sandra’s work has been recognized locally and nationally. She was named a “Woman of the Year” by the California State Legislature in 2004, and honored that same year by the California Water Policy Conference for the significant difference she has made in the lives of Alpaugh residents.