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California
Water Cuts Leave City Days Away From Running Out Of Water
CBS,
16
June, 2015
MOUNTAIN
HOUSE (CBS13) — The community of Mountain House is days away from
having no water at all after the state cut off its only water source.
Anthony
Gordon saves drinking water just in case, even though he never
thought it would come to this.
“My
wife thinks I’m nuts. I have like 500 gallons of drinking water
stored in my home,” he said.
The
upscale community of Mountain House, west of Tracy, is days away from
having no water. It’s not just about lawns—there may not be a
drop for the 15,000 residents to drink.
“We’re
out there looking for water supplies as we speak,” said Mountain
House general manager Ed Pattison. “We have storage tanks, but
those are basically just to ensure the correct pressurization of the
distribution system. No more than 2 days are in those storage tanks.”
The
community’s sole source of water, the Byron-Bethany Irrigation
District, was one of 114 senior water rights holders cut off by a
curtailment notice from the state on Friday.
That
means Mountain House leaders must find someone to sell them water,
hopefully, the GM says, to have enough until the end of the year.
“We
don’t want this town to become a ghost town, it was a beautiful
master-planned community,” he said.
A
number of water districts plan to sue the state on the grounds the
State Water Resources Control Board has no legal authority to cut off
some of California’s oldest and most protected water rights.
The
decision has Mountain House in uncharted territory, and the clock is
ticking before the water runs out. Pattison is confident he’ll be
able to buy some water to avoid catastrophe, but says that’s a
short-term fix. He’s planning to diversify the water supply for
long-term stability.
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