In recent years, SPUR’s Sustainability and Resilience team has partnered closely with Nuestra Casa, a community-based organization (CBO) serving Latino families in East Palo Alto and the Peninsula through community education, leadership development, and community-driven advocacy for housing affordability and environmental justice. We work with Nuestra Casa on research and advocacy around drinking water safety, groundwater rise and coastal flooding, and remediation of contaminated sites. Last year, in collaboration with Nuestra Casa, SPUR released Look Out Below, a report on present and future groundwater rise impacts in East Palo Alto. Since the release of that report, SPUR has supported Nuestra Casa in outreach and advocacy and in launching and coordinating the Peninsula Accountability for Contamination Team, a coalition of CBOs seeking to advance toxic site cleanup and infrastructure resilience in the face of rising coastal flood risks. We sat down with Nuestra Casa Environmental Justice Fellow Osvaldo Macias to discuss our partnership and its impact.
How did the three-plus-year partnership between SPUR and Nuestra Casa start?
Before I began working at Nuestra Casa, it was participating in the Integrated Regional Water Management Program Disadvantaged Communities and Tribal Assessment as part of the SF Estuary Partnership. SPUR had received funding from the Water Foundation to explore water equity issues in the Bay Area and ways to resolve them. Low-income communities around the Bay Area, including East Palo Alto, have long mistrusted their tap water — for good reason.
Nuestra Casa participated in a needs assessment to understand local water quality issues, public mistrust, and the rising costs of water and to conduct home water quality testing. The water coming out of the tap in East Palo Alto often smelled and tasted bad; it was brown and murky. Yet according to the home tests, the water did not violate any health safety standards in the Safe Drinking Water Act. In other words, residents could “safely” drink dirty, smelly water, meaning it was a low-priority issue for agencies. SPUR and Nuestra Casa partnered on research to more deeply understand tap water inequities in East Palo Alto, and eventually Nuestra Casa worked with Stanford University on two studies. The studies show that many residents opt to buy bottled water due to mistrust. Nuestra Casa is committed to supporting local advocacy to improve water infrastructure and affordability.
As we were examining drinking water issues in East Palo Alto, we became aware of the latest research on groundwater rise risks in low-lying communities around the Bay Area. We were concerned about groundwater rise impacts on our drinking water infrastructure and legacy industrial sites, so we turned to SPUR for additional research support. We wanted to learn more and to share our findings with the community. We learned that groundwater rise would have minimal impact on local drinking water infrastructure, but that it could have grave impacts on the many toxic sites along East Palo Alto’s shoreline. Groundwater rise is likely to spread toxins at these sites into the bay, floodwaters, and sewer systems, impacting public health.
What has Nuestra Casa been able to achieve by partnering with SPUR?
In just three years of working with SPUR, we have accomplished a great deal, starting with a research partnership that produced Look Out Below in May 2024 — shoutout to Pathways Climate Institute for its technical support on this publication. The report opened the doors to engagement with this emerging climate issue. With a clearer understanding of potential impacts to our community, we began meeting with local elected officials, presenting at City Council meetings, and sharing the report’s findings with our community. For many of the policymakers we spoke to, the information in this report was new. Ultimately, the community was most concerned about the issue of contaminant mobilization with groundwater rise and flooding from East Palo Alto’s 30-plus toxic sites located along the shoreline.
We knew that we needed more support on advocacy efforts, so we launched a coalition of local CBOs called the Peninsula Accountability for Contamination Team (PACT). Partnering with SPUR has enabled the coalition to meet monthly, hold working calls during which we collectively act on policy advocacy, and host informative community engagement events.
At the state level, SPUR helped PACT develop a list of legislative priorities to address site cleanups and coastal flood risk. Although none of PACT's priorities were explicitly adopted in 2025, SPUR coordinated PACT's support for Assembly Bill 1102, which would have directed the Department of Toxic Substances Control to develop a list of sites at risk of groundwater and sea level rise across the state. This bill failed, but we have since built a strong relationship with the office of Assemblymember Mia Bonta, creating opportunities for future state advocacy.
SPUR also connected Nuestra Casa with East Palo Alto’s representative, U.S. Congressman Kevin Mullin, to share our concerns about groundwater and coastal flood risks. A year and change later, Representative Mullin's office introduced the federal Groundwater Rise and Infrastructure Preparedness Act, a nonpartisan bill and the first piece of legislation to address the risks of groundwater rise to infrastructure and communities across the country. This bill would direct the U.S. Geological Survey to map and forecast coastal groundwater rise through 2100, study its impacts on infrastructure and public health, and provide recommendations for mitigation. Given the current federal situation, we don’t know where this piece of legislation will go, but we are thankful to Congressman Mullin for spotlighting this risk and to SPUR for facilitating this connection.
Has the partnership between SPUR and Nuestra Casa been beneficial for your organization’s mission in other ways?
Working with SPUR has helped us stay informed about environmental risks and prepare our frontline communities for climate change. SPUR brings policy expertise, legislative advocacy experience, and connections to key stakeholders, which makes it easier for small CBOs like Nuestra Casa to focus on what we do well: educating our communities and supporting community-led advocacy. Nuestra Casa sees partnerships like the one with SPUR as critical in helping frontline communities lead the fight for environmental justice. This partnership should be a model for others, with each partner bringing distinct strengths that make the efforts of both groups more effective and equitable. As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
Partnering with SPUR has had a ripple effect on our organization, opening new doors for us and the community. The opportunity to connect with policy leaders, state and regional agencies, academia, and other organizations on groundwater and contaminated site cleanup has cued up partnership and funding opportunities across a variety of issues. For example, the initial connection SPUR made between Congressman Mullin and Nuestra Casa allowed us to connect with his office on other issues, resulting in his support of federal drinking water legislation such as the Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program Establishment Act. We thank SPUR for helping grow our reach.
Lastly, SPUR’s contribution to our organization’s effectiveness in supporting community-led advocacy has made us more competitive when applying for philanthropic funding –– a critical value addition in a moment when funding for small organizations like ours is particularly difficult to come by.
What’s next for the partnership? What projects are on the horizon?
We are very excited to continue working with SPUR on local and state policy advocacy, research, and community engagement. Now, SPUR is supporting Nuestra Casa in piloting a community-driven research project to test indoor air quality near contaminated sites in East Palo Alto. The project will mainly test for the presence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in local community buildings. VOCs are easily mobilized by groundwater. With prolonged exposure, the public can be at increased risk of cancer, liver damage, and other health problems. Our study will mirror the recent research of Dr. Kristina Hill and UC Berkeley PhD student Emma Lasky. We sincerely appreciate their time and support in helping us develop this project.
To learn more about Nuestra Casa’s partnership with SPUR, catch our session at the State of the Estuary Conference on October 29, 2025.