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Havasu Lake residents boiling over water quality as EPA assumes oversight

September 6, 2024

From his front porch, Havasu Lake resident Gary Chamberlain can see the shimmering Colorado River. He also can see the storage tanks of the Havasu Water Co., which is supposed to supply his community with clean and safe drinking water.

Although the privately owned, 64-year-old water company draws its water from Lake Havasu — itself a large reservoir formed by Parker Dam — its ability to provide potable water to its 361 customers in their sundrenched community has been a challenge for more than two years.

Since May 2022, the company has been slapped with multiple citations and violation notices from state and federal water regulators for operational deficiencies, faulty equipment and failing to provide potable water to its customers. The company has repeatedly issued water boil notices to its customers due to high levels of trihalomethanes — byproducts formed during the water treatment process — that exceed minimum federal safety drinking water standards.

An attorney representing the company said costly and ongoing litigation with the neighboring Chemehuevi Indian Tribe has thwarted the company’s efforts to make necessary fixes to its public water system.

Havasu Lake resident Karen Chamberlain boils water on her stove among bottles and gallon jugs of drinking water she and husband Gary use. The Chamberlains and other Havasu Lake residents have been battling their water provider, Havasu Water Company, for years over alleged unsafe drinking water. (Courtesy photo)

The Havasu Water Company has been involved in litigation with customers and the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe for years and slapped with multiple fines and violation notices from state and federal water regulators over its water delivery system (Google Maps).

Havasu Lake resident Gary Chamberlain loads pallets of bottled water, provided by the San Bernardino County Office of Emergency Services, onto the back of a pickup on Friday, April 8, 2022. (Courtesy photo).

Havasu Lake resident Karen Chamberlain boils water on her stove among bottles and gallon jugs of water she and husband Gary use for drinking. The Chamberlains and other Havasu Lake residents have been battling their water provider, Havasu Water Company, for years over alleged unsafe drinking water. (Courtesy photo)

Havasu Water Company equipment seen in 2022. (Photo courtesy of Gary Chamberlain)

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“The irony of this whole debacle is that my wife and I can sit on our front porch any time of the day or night and watch millions and millions of gallons of water flow by, and yet we can’t get any of it to drink. We feel like we’re in a Third World country,” said Gary Chamberlain, 75, an 18-year resident of Havasu Lake and former chairman of the town’s municipal advisory council.

Community meeting

Residents aired their grievances during a community meeting on Thursday, Sept. 5, in Havasu Lake, hosted by officials with the state Public Utilities Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, which assumed regulatory oversight of the Havasu Water Co. on Jan. 1 because its 1,500-foot pipeline runs across the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe’s reservation.

Residents voiced frustration over bureaucratic red tape they claim has prevented them from getting clean and safe drinking water consistently. They also complained about increasing water rates and unsatisfactory results when complaining to state and federal agencies seeking help.

“We’re tired of this! This has got to stop!” demanded one resident who did not give their name.

Government officials told them they were doing everything they could, but insisted there is a process.

Christopher Chen, drinking water enforcement officer for the EPA, said the agency issued an order in May giving the water company until Dec. 31 to submit a plan for correcting significant deficiencies. Should the company fail to comply with the agency’s directives, the EPA can seek redress with the U.S. Department of Justice, Chen said.

The EPA has ordered Havasu Water Co. to develop a plan to, among other things, come into compliance with federal safe drinking water standards regarding levels of trihalomethanes, retain an appropriately certified operator, and submit timely surface water treatment data.

On Aug. 7, the agency issued the water company a notice for failing to comply with the May order by not submitting a compliance plan and not providing evidence that qualified personnel were operating its water system, among other things.

“We feel like we’ve exhausted all our routes for getting the water system to return to compliance, and we need to escalate — we’ll evaluate our options, and that can potentially be a referral to the Department of Justice,” Chen said during Thursday’s meeting.

But Chen also said the water company has been making strides, albeit small ones.

“We have seen progress made, but it may not be the progress you’re seeking,” he said.

Power outage started descent

Problems at Havasu Water Co. first surfaced in March 2022, when it was hit by a Southern California Edison power outage. The company did not have operable backup generators to keep its decrepit pump working, which cut off the supply of water to its customers. The crisis was compounded when the company’s only operator walked off the job.

Inspectors with the state Water Resources Control Board were called in to investigate, and it took nine days before the company could restore water service for showers and toilet flushing. However, residents said they went about a month before potable water was restored.

That opened a floodgate of citations and violation notices issued to the water company by the WRCB, starting with a $1,500 fine in May 2022 after the company failed to provide evidence that it had a certified water treatment operator and distribution system operator on staff. The company also failed to provide the state with a corrective action plan.

And while the company has provided documentation to the state Public Utilities Commission claiming it has certified operators working at its treatment plant, a PUC representative said during Thursday night’s meeting his agency has yet to actually observe the operators on site and working.

“That’s a little more difficult figuring out,” said Wilson Tsai of the PUC’s water services division.

From March 2022 to December 2023, the WRCB issued nine citations to the company totaling more than $7,800 for failing to comply with its directives.

According to court and EPA records, Havasu Lake residents had clean and running water only 44% of the time from March 2022 to March 2023. For the remainder of that time, their water was under-pressured and subject to “do not drink” and water boil notices due to high levels of trihalomethanes.

Patrick Wilson, senior regional toxicologist for the EPA, assured residents Thursday that the levels of trihalomethanes in their water supply were not that harmful.

“At the end of the day, we are talking about an extremely low level of contaminants in the water,” Wilson said. Still, he said it was unacceptable for the water company to continuously exceed trihalomethane levels in violation of federal safe water drinking standards.

“And we’re going to do something about it,” Wilson said.

Since the EPA assumed regulatory oversight of the water company, it has issued more than a dozen letters and notices to company President Jennifer Hodges citing significant deficiencies at its treatment plant, noncompliance with EPA administrative orders, interruptions in water service, and concerns over water pressure loss and water boil notices.

Lingering dispute with tribe

Havasu Water Co. had spent more than a decade of wrangling with the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe when the tribe sued in March 2020 over the right of the water company to run its pipeline across tribal land to the Lake Havasu waterfront, where it pumps its water to customers.

The tribe maintains that a 30-year agreement allowing the pipeline expired in 2006, and the water company has refused to negotiate a new annual rental agreement at fair rental value. Instead, the company continued paying the tribe only $500 a year under the original agreement, according to the lawsuit.

The water company disputes the tribe’s assertion that its 1976 agreement with the tribe terminated in 2006, and the lawsuit is ongoing.

“The tribe seeks to have the pipeline and pumping equipment removed, which will deprive 361 customers of water,” said Patrick Webb, an attorney representing Havasu Water Co., in an email. “This concerted illegal attempt to put Havasu Water Co. out of business after 60 years of serving the public has already cost the company and its customers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, which has delayed maintenance of the water system.”

Webb called the tribe’s lawsuit “erroneous,” noting that, in 1985, the Public Utilities Commission ordered the easement to be extended for the provision of public utility water service until it was no longer necessary.

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Residents and Indian tribe at odds over water

Webb also claims the EPA has erroneously asserted jurisdiction over the water company, which has been regulated by the state for the last 60 years. He said federal courts already have ruled that the treatment plant is not within the boundaries of the Chemehuevi reservation, but rather on federal Bureau of Land Management land.

“The EPA, apparently in cahoots with the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, now erroneously asserts that it has displaced California regulation of the water company because it is a tribal water company within the Chemehuevi’s reservation, when it’s not,” Webb said.

Attorneys for the tribe did not respond to telephone calls and emails requesting comment.

While the legal battle between the tribe and water company rages on, and state and federal regulators continue pushing the water company to comply with their directives, Havasu Lake residents, at least for the foreseeable future, could be looking at more water boil notices and more bottled water.

“Our water situation has not gotten any better,” Chamberlain said. “It’s gross negligence in my book.”

Orange County Register

News Details

Havasu Lake residents boiling over water quality as EPA assumes oversight

Community meeting

Power outage started descent

Lingering dispute with tribe

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