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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.<\/p>\n
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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\u00a0\u2014 residue they described as \u201cpoop dust\u201d\u00a0\u2014 still lingered.<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
Rachel Bujalski\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
The sewer system that serves Clearlake is operated by the county\u2019s Special Districts and overseen by the county\u2019s Sanitation District, an agency governed by the Board of Supervisors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLake County knew for years that this system was failing,\u201d said Knut Johnson,\u00a0an attorney representing some of the residents. \u201cWhen that force main finally gave way, nearly 500 residents paid the price and many are still waiting for clean water today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthew Rothstein, a public information officer for the county and its sanitation and special districts, said the county would not comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n
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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\u00a0\u2014 and are spending hundreds of dollars a month for water from county-provided tanks.<\/p>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
Rachel Bujalski\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
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\u2019s testing or filtration systems.<\/p>\n
Some property owners told the Chronicle they worried cloudy or sediment-heavy water could reduce the UV systems\u2019 effectiveness and said they viewed the county\u2019s efforts as a \u201cBand-Aid\u201d solution.<\/p>\n
According to one of the lawsuits, the private wells in the area are \u201cparticularly vulnerable\u201d to contamination because they\u2019re shallow and less protected by natural barriers that could repel potential contaminants. The second complaint, which represents 60 residents, alleges approximately 82% of the sewage spillage by the county has occurred in the last five years.<\/p>\n
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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 daycare on Robin Lane and have sued the county. The putrid streams flooded their septic tank and affected their well-water system, they said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re never going to feel safe here again,\u201d said Stephanie Piseno, who said she and her husband lost clients after the spill. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to move, but our home value is going to be a lot lower.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Mike Holland makes rice for dinner with bottled water at his home in Clearlake, Calif.<\/p>\n
Rachel Bujalski\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
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 \u201ccleared\u201d by the county to use the well his grandparents installed, he said he will never drink from it again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still love where I live, I have the best neighbors,\u201d said Holland, who described the neighborhood as an idyllic community of large parcels and orchards. \u201cThis was beyond our control, and now we\u2019re just living with it the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Residents also said they were not made aware of the scope\u00a0\u2014 or contents\u00a0\u2014 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll day (the first day after the spill), we were doing dishes, washing our clothes, brushing our teeth, giving our animals this water,\u201d said\u00a0Hulbert, who is immunocompromised and lives with her husband and two children.<\/p>\n
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Cassandra Hulbert gives her kids water bottles to drink with their dinner at their home in Clearlake, California.<\/p>\n
Rachel Bujalski\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u2014 but for now, they believe it is their safest option.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cvery frequent spills with no apparent corrective action plans\u201d under the current system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city also plans to file complaints with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Regional Water Board, the state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said. \u201cAny 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
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\u2019s sewage spill contaminated the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
Rachel Bujalski\/For the S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Though plaintiffs have alleged the spill involved nearly 3 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.<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u2014 the long-term infrastructure roadmap agencies use to assess vulnerabilities in equipment\u00a0\u2014 after the county received a notice of violation in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clearlake officials said they plan to wrest control of the sewer system from the county and file complaints…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[2356,192,79],"class_list":["post-639510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}