Wells run dry in rural Clovis, Calif.; voters reject $58,000-per-home water system

[Newsjock]

Source: Fresno Bee

Residents of a rural area north of Clovis where running water is sparse have decided not to tax themselves for a new water delivery system.

Proponents of the tax had been pushing for a steady supply of water for nine years because their wells had run dry. Opponents said the cost -- which could have approached $58,000 per household -- was way too much.

The mail-in vote was counted Tuesday afternoon. More than two-thirds of the roughly 430 homes opposed the tax.

Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/07/17/2912706/rural-clovis-residents-vote-against.html

[Politicalboi]

1. Wind energy can

Produce water, and run their homes.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/29/world/eole-water-turbine/index.html

[Warpy]

2. Trucking in water is going to get old really fast.

The ones who could afford the tax would pick up and leave. The ones who can't are stuck until they too give up and leave with nothing, hoping against hope that they won't be homeless too long.

It sucks when a town dies but lack of water is going to kill a lot of them.

[Canuckistanian]

12. That's a good point

Those with money and no community spirit will leave.

The only ones left are those who have no choice. And they'll be stuck with the bill.

[Zalatix]

3. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. Wow, that sucks.

[HiPointDem]

4. why did their wells run dry? who was sucking up the ground water?

[riderinthestorm]

6. Global warming? Environmental stress? Populations in areas that have no natural water?

We're going to see more and more of these communities that should have never been populated in the first place because of their lack of access to natural aquifers, die out.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

[HiPointDem]

8. those would be my last guesses, since there have been people with wells in that area for over 100

years.

my first would be agriculture. my second would be overbuilding/population influx, including in nearby fresno.

sorry, it is necessarily a bad thing. san joaquin valley = the majority of california's agricultural production. which fyi = a majority of us agricultural production.

on edit: or perhaps it's the upscale residents of this gated community in clovis & their artificial lake:

[progressoid]

15. Holy Jesus!

N. Waterside Dr.

[vanlassie]

5. It's not as if no one has mentioned to theses people that the water is going to give out....

And still Clovis has allowed massive overbuilding out there in the past ten years.

[GarroHorus]

7. Sounds like this area is becoming a Randian Libertarian paradise.

Let them dessicate themselves.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

9. The nearby community of Quail Lake in Clovis seems to have sufficient water.

Quail Lakes is a gated lakeside community located in Clovis. This eco-friendly community is surrounded by a 357 acre lake with breathtaking mountain views, beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
...
Quail Lake provides over 700 home sites ranging from million dollar luxury custom homes to more affordable family and retirement residences. Quail Lake is designed into 5 unique harbors: Acacia, The Cove, Landmark, Mountain View, and South Bay. Each harbor is it’s own community but all of the harbors share the same Quail Lake amenities. For example, most of the homes in the Landmark harbor are lakefront, whereas the Acacia harbor homes are next to the wetlands and walking trail. The Mountain View harbor faces the Sierra Nevada.
http://clovisexperts.com/tag/quail-lake-clovis-ca/

[HiPointDem]

11. veddy interesting. and i bet that ain't a natural reservoir. that may be the answer to the

question "who's sucking up all the groundwater?"

...and the big fat hypocrites have an "environmental charter school"!!!!

yuppie asshole city.

i have relatives that live in a rural area -- got along fine there for 100 years. neighbors started subdividing, new people drilled wells -- the old wells went dry.

hard to tell what might have happened if the new people had decided to put in a fucking lake as well.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

13. Yes, it's not a natural reservoir. It's a 57-acre man-made lake in a gated community.

One explanation is that somebody has to use the water.

[HiPointDem]

16. "One explanation is that somebody has to use the water." ???? no idea what you mean.

[hunter]

17. "eco-friendly???"

"Eco-friendly" might be something like this:

Mats of tules were laid over the pole frame. Water was added to some of the loose dirt that had been dug out to form the floor. Then it was thrown on top of the tule mats and beaten down with sticks. When the mud dried, it formed a tight, strong covering over the tule mats and poles. Over time, wild grasses grew on the houses’ mud covering, and they blended into their surroundings. It seemed to early travelers in the San Joaquin Valley that Yokuts came running out of the ground like rabbits from burrows.

The Yokuts also built other types of shelters. The long tule mat-covered community house was the largest. It was sometimes 300 feet long and from the outside looked like a long tent.

Many families might live in the community house. Sometimes the people of an entire village would live together in such a house. The house had a steep roof and straight sides made of poles. Small cut-off branches were left on the poles so they could be used as hooks. Strings of dried meat, acorns, fish, personal belongings, camping equipment, and bows and arrows were hung from them. The north wall of the house was completely covered with several layers of tule mats. The doorways were along the south side. There were no walls inside the house to make rooms, but each family had its own space, its own door, and its own fire circle.

http://www.tularecountyhistory.org/Yokuts/Yokuts_shelter.htm

We could raise fish in the ponds and dry it on the shore.


I'll bet they wouldn't let me build a house like that in Quail Lake.

[Iggy]

10. Umm

kinda hard to shower w/ bottled water

[jtuck004]

14. What's wrong with their surface water tx plant? They were already taxed for that, and it

was supposed to meet "... the water needs for Clovis will be met for decades to come ...".
http://www.ci.clovis.ca.us/ServicesAndDepartments/PublicUtilities/Water/Pages/DrinkingWaterdefault.aspx

Another $25 million for water would make me think twice.