The water (infrastructure) crisis in rural-ish coastal California

The Los Angeles Times and New York Times ran back-to-back stories out of Mendocino, California, population 894, with the topic being the town's water shortage.

 Here's the lede for the LA Times story by Hailey Branson-Potts:

The Santa Claus of water rolls through this foggy coastal hamlet in a silver and white truck, bringing joy and relief.

Wayne Jones refills water tanks for residents and businesses whose wells have gone dry. A bespectacled bald man with a majestic white goatee, he moves quickly and speaks sparingly.

Amid Mendocino’s worst drought on record, people are increasingly desperate for the private water hauler’s help.

Mendocino has no municipal water system. All businesses and homes rely upon wells — some hand-dug in the 1800s. But rain has been scant. Underwater aquifers are depleting. Wells are running dry.

The New York Times story by Thomas Fuller includes still more information about the role of infrastructure--or lack thereof--in this rural water crisis. 

 Mendocino’s water shortage is an extreme example of what some far-flung towns in California are experiencing as the state slips deeper into its second year of drought. Scores of century-old, hand-dug wells in the town have run dry, forcing residents, inns and restaurants to fill storage tanks with water trucked from faraway towns at the cost of anywhere from 20 to 45 cents a gallon. Utilities in California, by contrast, typically charge their customers less than a penny per gallon of tap water.  

This past week, residents of Mendocino watched as the Senate passed its $1 trillion infrastructure package, wondering whether some of those funds might reach them. Dianne Feinstein, the senior senator from California, has pointed out that the package specifically targets drought mitigation projects such as water storage, water recycling and desalination.

But it can’t come soon enough for many living in the small towns in northern parts of the state.

The drought is revealing for California that perhaps even more than rainfall it is money and infrastructure that dictate who has sufficient water during the state’s increasingly frequent dry spells. The drought, and the effects of climate change more generally, have drawn a bold line under the weaknesses of smaller communities with fewer resources.

Six hundred miles to the south of Mendocino, in a much more arid part of the state, the Lake Perris reservoir, a large artificial lake that provides drinking water to San Bernardino and Riverside, is nearly full.

Lake Skinner, Lake Matthews and Diamond Valley Lake, in the dry hills southeast of Los Angeles, are all around 80 percent full.

I'm reminded that Governor Gavin Newsom declared the first stage of the current California drought several months ago at Lake Mendocino, near Ukiah, the county seat.  That first phase of the drought included Mendocino County, of course.  

I'm also reminded of another coastal town--this one on the central coast--that has been struggling with water woes for a few years:  Cambria.