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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The city of Clearlake has declared a local emergency in response to a massive ongoing sewage spill that began on Sunday due to a failure in the county-managed wastewater system.
The incident on Robin Lane, which began on Sunday morning, has impacted dozens of homes in and around the city of Clearlake, spilling raw sewage that has flooded the area south of Pond
Road, north of Rumsey Road, east of Pamela Lane and west of Robin Lane, and spreading into drainage ditches, waterways, Burns Valley Creek and Clear Lake, officials reported.
The wastewater system is managed by the Lake County Sanitation District, or Lacosan, which is under Lake County Special Districts, headed by Administrator Robin Borre.
Lacosan has urged property owners to use bottled water only and not use private well water over concerns for contamination, with an emergency station for clean drinking water having been established at Pond Road and Old Highway 53.
Water provided by public water systems remains safe to use, Special Districts reported.
While posts on social media sites included statements from area residents about the extent of the spill — with at least one estimating more than 2.5 million gallons released — on Monday afternoon, county spokesman Trevor Mockel said the extent of the release had not yet been fully calculated due to the ongoing nature of the response and repair work.
He said Lake County Special Districts “is actively mitigating the situation to stem the spread while repairs are underway, and assessments are continuing in real time.”
Mockel added, “Until crews are able to fully access the forced main and complete a thorough assessment, all we can confirm at this point is that the forced main failed underground.”
He said a confirmed cause of the failure “will only be determined after repairs are complete and a full evaluation of the line can be conducted.”
Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora told Lake County News that multiple repairs were supposedly completed on Monday, but when he was on-site of the spill’s source in the afternoon, it was still leaking.
“No city facilities have been impacted yet,” Flora said.
Flora said the city helped with traffic control on Sunday “but that is the only request we have received” to assist the county.
Video of the spill site shared by the city of Clearlake showed the wastewater flowing down roadways, across fields and yards, with pumper trucks and large hoses in place throughout the area.
Emergency declaration gives more details on spill
On Monday night, Flora issued the city’s emergency proclamation, which is expected to be ratified by the Clearlake City Council at its first meeting of the year on Thursday.
The document gave greater details about the incident, which began at 7:45 a.m. Sunday when a 16-inch force main located on Robin Lane ruptured, spilling raw sewage.
The proclamation noted that “the spill quickly resulted in raw sewage flooding the area south of Pond Road and north of Rumsey Road, east of Pamela Lane and west of Robin Lane.”
The city reported that an estimated 58 properties within the spill’s footprint have been directly impacted, “with the majority of those homes using private wells for water supply.”
The document also noted, “multiple faulty valves prohibited isolating the leak and the leak continues up to this point,” and “impacts to the properties, the underlying aquifer, the City’s storm drainage system, road network, creeks and waterways, Clear Lake and many residents is on-going and still unknown in total scope.”
The city’s proclamation requests that the county of Lake and Lacosan also declare a local emergency and a public health emergency.
With the emergency declaration, the city also is seeking from the governor a proclamation declaring an emergency in the city of Clearlake.
The city’s declaration opens the door for the city to receive recovery assistance from the state and help through federal disaster relief programs.
If the spill is in fact in the millions of gallons, it would put it on par with an April 2006 incident in which between 3.6 and 6 million gallons of treated wastewater ran off the City of Lakeport Municipal Sewer District site, into a tributary of Clear Lake and eventually into the lake itself.
That event resulted in the city being required to make numerous upgrades to its wastewater system in order to address state actions including a hookup ban.
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