Cassandra’s kids brush their teeth using bottled water at their home on Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they have relied on purchased water for months following January’s sewage spill.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Cassandra adds another empty water bottle to the bags of empty water bottles outside her home on Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they have relied on purchased water since January’s sewage spill contaminated the neighborhood.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Cassandra Hulbert outside her home with her two sons on Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they continue to rely on hauled and bottled water months after January’s sewage spill.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Clearlake officials said they plan to wrest control of the sewer system from the county and file complaints with a range of environmental and regulatory agencies.
Courtesy of City of Clearlake
Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they continue to rely on hauled and bottled water months after January’s sewage spill.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Residents of a rural Northern California neighborhood sued Lake County last week after a sewer line rupture in January unleashed around 1.38 million gallons of untreated waste, creating a moat of raw sewage around their homes for nearly 40 hours and contaminating a network of private water wells supplied by a shallow aquifer.
In a complaint filed last week in Lake County Superior Court, 14 residents of Robin Lane accused the county and the agencies that run its water and sewage systems of insufficiently maintaining the sewage system for decades before the spill on Jan. 11. County officials declined to comment on the lawsuit but said crews had installed more than 100 UV sanitation and filtration systems on residents’ properties.
The lawsuit comes as the county-run sewer system faces mounting pressure from regulators and city officials who have raised concerns for years about how the system has been operated and maintained. Clearlake officials said they plan to wrest control of the sewer system from the county and file complaints with a range of environmental and regulatory agencies.
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Residents of Clearlake neighborhood are suing county agencies after a massive sewage spill left homes dependent on bottled water for months.
San Francisco Chronicle
According to state regulators, the rupture occurred at the site of a 2003 repair on the same 16-inch pipe that broke open in January. In 2023, a break involving the same sewer pipe released 600,000 gallons of sewage into a nearby area of town and subsequently into Clear Lake.
The steaming sewage — wastewater that originated from surrounding communities — surged down Robin Lane for two days as crews struggled to stop the flow because crucial shutoff valves were stuck. Residents who filed the lawsuit allege that the county knew the shutoff valve was faulty but had not procured emergency parts. They are seeking monetary compensation and court orders that would require the county to clean up the aquifer.
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The outflow swiftly inundated an area of about 550 acres and affected at least 475 residents. Around 200 properties were impacted when the raw sewage touched their properties or contaminated their wells before the gushing stream flowed into a nearby creek and again into Clear Lake, the complaint alleged.
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Residents alleged that even after the county made efforts to remediate the spill with vacuum trucks and dustings of agricultural lime, airborne particles — residue they described as “poop dust” — still lingered.
Cassandra Hulbert holds a jug of discolored water outside her home on Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they remain concerned about water contamination months after a sewage pipe rupture released millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the neighborhood.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
The sewer system that serves Clearlake is operated by the county’s Special Districts and overseen by the county’s Sanitation District, an agency governed by the Board of Supervisors. All are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
“Lake County knew for years that this system was failing,” said Knut Johnson, an attorney representing the residents. “When that force main finally gave way, nearly 500 residents paid the price and many are still waiting for clean water today.”
Matthew Rothstein, a public information officer for the county and its sanitation and special districts, said the county would not comment on pending litigation.
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Five months after the spill, families who once cherished their self-reliance said they now depend on bottled water to cook, drink and brush their teeth — and are spending hundreds of dollars a month for water from county-provided tanks.
Cassandra Hulbert makes pretzel dough using bottled water inside her home on Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they continue to avoid using their well water months after a sewage pipe rupture flooded the neighborhood with untreated sewage.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Lake County officials said they installed UV sanitation and filtration systems at 103 eligible properties and declared many wells safe again after repeated testing. But residents interviewed by the Chronicle said they still distrust the water, explaining that they do not have confidence in the county’s testing or filtration systems.
Some property owners told the Chronicle they worried cloudy or sediment-heavy water could reduce the UV systems’ effectiveness and said they viewed the county’s efforts as a “band-aid” solution.
According to the complaint, the private wells in the area are “particularly vulnerable” to contamination because they’re shallow and less protected by natural barriers that could repel potential contaminants.
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Like many others, the spill surrounded and went under the home of Juan and Stephanie Piseno, a married couple who run a home day care on Robin Lane. The putrid streams flooded their septic tank and affected their well-water system. The Pisenos are not part of the lawsuit filed by other Robin Lane residents but have separately sued the county.
“We’re never going to feel safe here again,” said Stephanie Piseno, who said she and her husband lost clients after the spill. “We’re going to have to move, but our home value is going to be a lot lower.”
Mike Holland makes rice for dinner with bottled water at his home in Clearlake, California.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Robin Lane lifer Mike Holland, an engineer for AT&T whose grandparents bought the property in the mid 1950s, went 26 days without water at his home until the county provided a 2,500-gallon water tank. Though he was technically “cleared” by the county to use the well his grandparents installed, he said he will never drink from it again.
“I still love where I live, I have the best neighbors,” said Holland, who described the neighborhood as an idyllic community of large parcels and orchards. “This was beyond our control, and now we’re just living with it the best we can.”
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Residents also said they were not made aware of the scope — or contents — of the spill for hours. Some, like Cassandra Hulbert, say they were not told to halt their water use until hours after the spill was reported and initially assumed it was just a broken water line.
“All day (the first day after the spill), we were doing dishes, washing our clothes, brushing our teeth, giving our animals this water,” said Hulbert, who is immunocompromised and lives with her husband and two children.
Cassandra Hulbert gives her kids water bottles to drink with their dinner at their home in Clearlake, California.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
The family, which cares for four rabbits, chickens, two dogs and four cats, had to temporarily relocate after the spill. Paying $600 a month for water is unsustainable, Hulbert said — but for now, they believe it is their safest option.
During city council meetings this year, Clearlake officials decried a lack of consistent oversight and their dwindling confidence in the county-run sewer system. In statements to the Chronicle, Clearlake City Manager Alan Flora alleged there had been “very frequent spills with no apparent corrective action plans” under the current system.
The city also plans to file complaints with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Regional Water Board, the state’s Natural Resources Agency and other entities for alleged code violations from lack of odor control systems to violations of the Clean Water Act, Flora said.
“The Robin Lane spill would not have been as significant of an issue if basic maintenance had happened and the pitiful response and recovery efforts were really the last straw,” he said. “Any hope that this scope of disaster would help them refocus their efforts on taking honesty, maintenance and thoughtful planning seriously was soon dashed as well.”
Cassandra Hulbert carries bags filled with empty water bottles outside her home on Robin Lane in Clearlake, Calif., on Monday, May 11, 2026. Residents say they have relied on purchased water since January’s sewage spill contaminated the neighborhood.
Rachel Bujalski/For the S.F. Chronicle
Though plaintiffs have alleged the spill involved nearly three million gallons, regulators and county reports later described that as a maximum estimate and cited the figure as closer to 1.38 million gallons, according to technical reports shared with the Chronicle by state officials.
State water regulators declined to comment on any enforcement against the county, but said they were working with the Lake County Special Districts. They also said they were unaware of any updated Capital Improvement Plan — the long-term infrastructure roadmap agencies use to assess vulnerabilities in equipment —after the county received a notice of violation in 2024.