How to resolve AdBlock issue? LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Ten days after a three-million-gallon sewage spill left some Clearlake residents without clean running water, the Board of Supervisors approved a $750,000 budget resolution to purchase and fill water tanks for affected households during a special meeting on Wednesday.
The discussion began with District 2 Supervisor Bruno Sabatier, whose district is ground zero for the incident, requesting a $500,000 transfer from the general fund reserve to the Lake County Sanitation District’s Southeast Regional System to purchase water tanks for residents advised not to use their private wells due to contamination concerns.
“We need to provide a certain level of dignity and quality of life back to the people that are living in those areas,” said Sabatier.
Providing and installing these water tanks until residents can re-access safe and clean water wells and go back to normality — “That is the least of what we should be looking at doing,” he said.
The $500,000 amount would cover only the purchase and installation of 60 water tanks, each with a capacity of 2,500 gallons.
To cover water refilling, “it would need to be raised a little bit, at least to $600,000,” said Assistant County Administrative Officer Stephen Carter.
“Where is that money coming from to fill the tanks?” Supervisor Brad Rasmussen asked.
“I believe that Special Districts is expected to continue to burden the costs,” said Robin Borre, administrator of the agency. “We are out of money; we've depleted our reserves in that district.”
On top of that, Borre suggested an uncertain timeline of the situation.
“We don't know if the sanitation of the wells is going to be successful,” Borre said. “So this could be a two-week thing. It could be a two month-thing — we don't know how long it's going to go on.”
“So why not make it $750,000 and if we don't spend it, we don't spend it,” said Sabatier. “If we have to spend it, at least it's available so we don't have to have an urgent situation of money.”
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the increased amount.
The Lake County Sanitation District, or LACOSAN, is overseen by Lake County Special Districts. LACOSAN operates a 16-inch force main near Robin Lane and Pond Road in Clearlake that ruptured on Sunday, Jan. 11, resulting in a sewage spill.
Lake County Special Districts reported being notified of the spill at 7:30 a.m. that day. The spill was stopped at 9:55 p.m. on Jan. 12.
An estimated 2.9 million gallons of raw sewage spilled across hundreds of acres east of Smith Lane, west of Old Highway 53, south of Pond Road and north of Bowers Avenue, with 3,900 gallons released into a drainage ditch that ran to Burns Creek and into Clear Lake, according to county staff.
By the time the board approved the resolution on Wednesday, impacted residents had been living without clean running water for 10 days.
“I do wish that this had been done earlier, but it is here today,” Sabatier said at the meeting.
At the meeting, Sabatier demanded repeatedly that an order of water tanks be placed by the end of Wednesday.
“I don't mean to be rude or overly directive — as soon as this meeting is over, we need to order ASAP,” Sabatier said.
As a response, Borre said twice she had to check in with staff about quotes. “It's my understanding we have one quote so far,” Borre said.
However, both Carter and Sabatier said there were multiple.
“So please get that accomplished,” said Sabatier, who added, “I’ll be checking it.”
During the town hall in the evening at Clearlake City Hall, Borre said that 20 water tanks had been ordered.
Delayed response
At the beginning of the discussion, Sabatier said he had not expected board action would be required to allocate funds for disaster relief.
“I was not aware that we needed to do what we're doing today,” he said. “I would expect that dollars made available in what we call disaster relief and recovery should be accessible immediately.”
The city of Clearlake declared a local emergency on Monday, Jan. 12, while the spill was still active.
The following day, Jan. 13, the Lake County Office of Emergency Services and the county’s Public Health officer declared a local emergency near the end of the Board of Supervisors meeting. That remained the only time spent on the sewage spill during that board meeting, which lasted less than three minutes.
A week after the proclamation, barriers to immediate fund allocation still exist.
“I was not aware that things were on hold until I had to put this together,” Sabatier said at Wednesday's special meeting. “So I feel the frustration of the people that are involved, and I don't disregard their frustration with me. We also have barriers that should not be here for emergencies, and we need to solve that for the future.”
“I'm just asking staff — please make it as simple as possible,” he said. “This is the beginning of it, but this is an emergency that is unlike any others. This is not a natural disaster.”
While the board was discussing the budget resolution, Sabatier said water tanks had been brought in and installed for some residents.
"Tanks are being installed, as we speak,” Sabatier said. “I saw a lot of them yesterday. I don't know that any of them have been installed, but they are starting."
Lake County News sought clarification from the county. “At least one tank has been installed, as of this time, and multiple are in process,” Chief Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein said in an email Wednesday afternoon.
Those tanks were 1,500 gallons per tank, funded via the Social Services-administered Home Safe program and intended for relatively small households, Rothstein said.
The process of allocating funds, ordering and installing water tanks for residents started 10 days after the incident started, a week after the county Public Health officer advised 60 gallons of clean water for daily use per person per day.
Both Carter and Borre mentioned the “depletion” of department funds during the special meeting.
In response to questions from Lake County News about when those funds were depleted and when the depletion was formally reported, “Funding initially available toward disaster response was depleted; not all Special Districts funding,” Rothstein responded in an email.
“Staff in County Administration have been closely following expenditures associated with this event, and it became evident over the weekend additional funding would need to be allocated to support the response,” Rothstein said.
Lake County News followed up with questions asking how much funding was initially available for disaster response and how much has been spent responding to the spill. No response had been received as of publication.
Community members voiced grievances
During public comment, impacted residents voiced frustration over the county’s outreach and notification during the disaster.
“I found out about this meeting today because I happened to read my local paper. I found out about the town hall meeting last week because I happened to check the city of Clearlake’s Nixle — not their obligation; each and every one of yours,” said Jacqueline Snyder, who lives on Old Highway 53 within the impact zone. “This is becoming rapidly a joke.”
“I haven't had any outreach other than I called and I asked for water for my three dogs, three cats and six chickens, and I got two gallons [of water],” she said at the meeting. “Nobody has been out to my property to test.”
Snyder later told Lake County News that the abovementioned exchange took place on Saturday, and that the household had continued to use water from their private well until last Wednesday, Jan 14.
“I'm on the outlying part of the zone,” she said during a phone call. “But we didn't realize at that point that we were in the zone.”
Speaking on Zoom, Cassandra Hulbert, a Robin Lane resident who lives in the spill area, demanded county notification by mail.
“We need documentation because there are people still drinking their water that aren't taking this seriously because they have not received notification,” She said, adding that Facebook and Nixles are not reaching people who do not have access to social media.
“There's been nothing in our mailboxes saying anything about anything. We've gotten no well test results that have been documented,” Hulbert said. “I don't have anything on a piece of paper that says this is even happening.”
“There are still people, as of yesterday, that still did not know what was happening,” she added.
During her comment, Snyder also spoke against the demeanor of Susan Parker, county administrative officer, or CAO, before the meeting started.
“I also observed your [CAO] laughing, hopefully hurriedly getting out of here today," said Snyder, who said she overheard Parker laughing and saying the meeting would take five or 10 minutes.
“[This] is exactly why I'm taking at least three minutes, so you have to stay three minutes longer,” Snyder added. “This is disgusting.”
This sentiment and observation were echoed by a Facebook post by Rachel White right after the meeting.
“I was irritated because I just felt like she should have shown a little more professionalism,” said Snyder of Parker in a phone call.
Lake County News reached out to the county for comment.
“Unfortunately, it appears Ms. Snyder overheard a differently oriented comment and received it out of context,” Rothstein said in an email.
Parker’s comment on a brief meeting time “spoke to her confidence that the item responded to a clearly demonstrated public need, as well as the urgency of work commencing that was enabled by today's action,” he added.
The email said Parker has taken the incident “very seriously, and has also sought to ensure all responding remain calm and effective in their work.”
“Any laughter that may have been observed was in no respect making light of what affected residents are facing,” Rothstein added.
The discussion at the special meeting, including all public comment and action, ended up lasting about 30 minutes.
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