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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – As well water testing continues, installation of water filtration and sanitization systems will begin soon in households impacted by the Robin Lane sewage spill, a Clearlake city official said Thursday evening.
Out of 164 homes within the spill’s impact zone, 79 had submitted applications for the system, according to City Manager Alan Flora during the Clearlake City Council meeting.
“So we're continuing to call folks out there, encourage them to apply,” Flora said during the Thursday meeting, adding that the order of the first 100 units will arrive on Friday.
For properties unreachable by phone, a flier will be left at the home with information about the application, he added.
Flora said the equipment is “a long-term solution” for potentially contaminated private wells that residents rely on for drinking and daily use, amid uncertainty over how long it will take to clear the aquifer.
These systems, costing $260,000 including shipping and installation for the 100 units, are designed to disinfect water that may be “microbiologically unsafe, which is obviously the main issue here,” Flora said during a previous town hall meeting addressing impacted residents.
“We plan on starting installation on Monday and we’re hoping to get them all installed over the next few weeks out the next couple of weeks,” Flora said in a text message to Lake County News on Friday.
It was on Jan. 11 that a 16-inch county-run force main ruptured on Robin Lane within the city limits of Clearlake, resulting in the release of an estimated 2.9 million gallons of raw sewage, impacting homes across 550 acres in the area.
The force main is owned and operated by the Lake County Sanitation District, which is overseen by the Lake County Special Districts.
While the Special Districts handled the response during and immediately after the spill, and remains the operator of the sewer system, the city of Clearlake and the Lake County Office of Emergency Services have coled long-term recovery efforts since Jan. 26.
Questions regarding the sewer system are “most appropriately addressed to Lake County Special Districts,” Flora said at the council meeting. “The system isn't owned and operated by the city.”
During public comment at Thursday’s council meeting, a member of the public questioned why there have been changes in spill-related data reported and why the city didn’t announce it.
“I think the incident management team had some concerns about where the numbers came from, and so it wasn't something that we really wanted to reflect in our messaging,” Flora said.
“We relied on Special Districts as it’s their responsibility to report what they chose to report to the State Water Board and Cal OES.”
“And those numbers have been shared,” Flora added. “But I think there deserves to be scrutiny of the numbers.”
The sewage spill figures reported to the state changed from the initial 2000 gallons to almost three million gallons, as Lake County News disclosed a week after the spill.
In fact, figures reported publicly have changed again after that, with the Special Districts claiming that they had recovered all the sewage associated with the spill and only 3,900 gallons had entered the waterways.
At the Feb. 10 Board of Supervisors meeting where $1.75 million of county disaster reserves was allocated to support recovery efforts on the sewer spill, Sterling Wellman, a community member, asked to hold the Special Districts to account.
“Thirty nine hundred gallons wouldn't affect an aquifer that expands … to 500 acres,” she said. “If we're spending $1.75 million, it's way more than 3,900 gallons.”
Hydrologist to study impact from rainstorms on aquifer
As heavy and continuous rainstorms hit Lake County, the hydrologist hired by the incident command team would be interested to study the well testing data before and after, Flora reported to the city council. “Because the rain, obviously, was significant enough.”
Flora said the hydrologist expected to see a short-term increase of fecal bacteria in the post-rain test results as some contaminants may be “flushed into the aquifer.”
“But then the volume of water should quickly flush out for more beneficial long-term recoveries,” Flora added.
The hydrologist, Dr. Annjanette Dodd of Northpoint Consulting, spoke over Zoom during the most recent – and last in a series of four – town hall meeting on Feb. 5, explaining the plume directions she had identified and that shallow wells less than 100 feet deep are prone to contamination from the aquifer.
Temporary recovery efforts have included installing and refilling water tanks, each 1,500 or 2,500 gallons for impacted residents. So far, a total of 50 tanks have been installed, with 31 by the incident management team and 19 by Lake County Social Services.
Well testing is ongoing and will continue after the systems are installed, Flora said on Thursday.
By Thursday, a total of 668 water samples had been collected from 151 sites for well water testing, with 67 wells sanitized.
The deadlines for the water tank and the filtration system are both Feb. 28. Residents must apply through the online portal. Residents who need assistance may contact the city at 707-994-8201.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article quoted Flora in the City Council meeting as saying they would get “all those 100 systems installed over the weekend.” Flora later clarified that this statement at the meeting was not accurate. The article has been updated to reflect the installation plan he provided on Friday.
Lingzi Chen is a staff reporter at Lake County News and a 2024-2026 California Local News Fellow. Email her at lchen@lakeconews.com.
