Severe Drinking Water Contamination Surfaces After Brutal Camp Fire

PARADISE, California — In November, a wall of flames fueled by dry forests and wooden structures tore through this Sierra foothill town like the dogs of Hell. More than 9,000 homes were destroyed and 86 people were killed. Yet even with those extraordinary measures of tragedy, Paradise today confronts the most fiendish and unexpected consequence of wildfire desolation ever encountered by an American city.

Beneath the blast furnace heat that incinerated buildings and vehicles above ground, an intricate network of drinking water pipes below the surface became so contaminated with toxic chemicals that many are unusable.

The extent of the damage and exactly how the poisons accumulated in the pipes of Paradise and in the smaller, neighboring districts served by Del Oro Water Company is not known. More clear, say utility leaders and outside experts, is that repairing the severely wounded water system and solving the contamination could take several years.  The consequences to residents are coming into focus. Many families that had homes that survived the flames cannot return until the poisons are removed. Thousands more property owners will likely decide not to rebuild.

Almost every hazardous element of the Paradise disaster established new benchmarks of public hardship from wildfire. But no state — not combustible Idaho, Montana, and California in the 20th century, not Michigan and Wisconsin in the 19th — has ever had a town of Paradise’s size leveled during a day of wildfire so dangerous that even water plant workers fled their posts to save their lives.

Contamination in water pipes adds an entirely new dimension to the nation’s wildfire menace. No town water system has ever lost nearly all of its customers, which are its source of revenue, and attempted such a feat of investigation, outreach, and rehabilitation from fire with so few resources. It is a new chapter in the history of disaster recovery in America — one that easily could be repeated as fire seasons lengthen in the West, more acres are consumed, and communities expand into wildland areas that are susceptible to burning.

“What they’re facing is, it’s hard to put into words, frankly,” Dan Newton of the State Water Board’s Division of Drinking Water told Circle of Blue. “It is a tremendous effort that is going to be needed to get that town back up on its feet.”  

“It will probably resemble a military operation,” added Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University environmental engineer who has been assisting Paradise Irrigation District, which manages the water system. “The logistical coordination of what they’re facing will be significant.”

Homes in Paradise didn’t just burn. They were obliterated, leveled to their foundations. Four months after the fire, most residential properties are still in disarray. Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

A Big Restoration Project

The scene in Paradise, almost 90 miles north of Sacramento, resembles a massive construction zone. More than nine out of 10 homes and buildings were burned to their foundations in the town where 27,000 people lived before the fire.

During the day, dump trucks hauling debris zip down Clark Road and Skyway Road toward Chico. Orange-vested flaggers stop traffic so that dead trees can be cut and trucks can maneuver tight turns. Electrical crews replace light poles and power lines. Workers stop for coffee at Starbucks, one of the few businesses that reopened, which is using trucked-in water for its lattes and macchiatos. At night the town is silent and nearly deserted, the occasional occupied home, lit brightly in the dark, as surprising as a bear encounter.

Residents are trickling back to homes that are still standing. Some are sketching rebuilding projects. For many, though, there are uncertainties about the safety of drinking water.

Steve and Ruth Ann Lobdell were snared in that predicament. Their house, on the northern edge of town, was one of the few that the fire spared.

Since November, the Lobdells, who are in their sixties, have been living in a rented travel trailer, paid for by their insurance company. They park the trailer at the Elks Lodge in Chico, a 30-minute drive away, because their local lodge is rubble.

They would not go home until they had proof that their home and water pipes were not contaminated with benzene and other chemicals. The Lobdells received their test results earlier this month. They showed no detection of benzene. The couple plans to move back at the end of the month. Even then, trust that the contaminants are truly clear from their tap will take much longer to build.

“We will use this for quite a while,” Steve said, patting a pallet of bottled water that he was volunteering to distribute to Paradise residents at a drive-in pickup spot. The flow of cars arriving to collect a one-case-per-day-per-household allotment was steady in the late winter sun.

Bob and Judi Alderson are another example. They moved back into their home on the southwest side of town in the beginning of February. The home had a little smoke damage but otherwise was untouched.

Before returning to Paradise they lived for two months in a loft above a friend’s garage, in Chico. “We were anxious to move away from there,” Bob told Circle of Blue. “We wanted to get back.”

The Aldersons purchased a $3,000 Culligan system to remove benzene, volatile organics, and heavy metals. They were most concerned about benzene, which is what they heard public officials discussing.

Alderson said that Culligan will test the water two weeks after installation and then once a year. They’re using their treated tap water for all purposes, including cooking, bathing, and drinking.

Paradise Irrigation District will reconnect residents to the water system but there are health risks. Homeowners are warned not to drink the water or, because volatile chemicals like benzene can vaporize, to boil it. The district is handing out donated bottled water as a replacement drinking water source, and they have a tap at the district’s treatment plant for people to fill tanks and jugs. Residents are also told to take short showers in lukewarm water, again because of vaporization.

Outside experts like Whelton worry that residents are being left to fend for themselves, with no guidance about how to sample the water, what to look for, and how often to test. Residents may be moving back into homes unaware of the water contamination risk, he says.

“There’s no oversight, no guidance,” he told Circle of Blue. “People’s health is at stake.”

What Is In The Pipes

More than a dozen volatile organic chemicals have been found so far in samples from water service lines and hydrants. A handful of those chemicals have a state or federal drinking water standard. Benzene is the most frequently detected chemical above health standards, but it is not the only one and too few tests have been run to have an adequate picture of the contamination.

Benzene affects the blood and bone marrow, and prolonged exposure can result in anemia or leukemia. Breathing in too much of the gas leads to dizziness and fainting, or if levels are extremely high, death. Benzene can vaporize, even when it is in water. California sets a limit of one part per billion for benzene in drinking water, which is five times lower than the federal government’s standard. Kevin Phillips, the Irrigation District manager, said that some people, but none so far in Paradise, have discovered benzene by passing out in the shower.

The extent of the problem is displayed schematically on a town map in Paradise Irrigation District’s temporary offices. Green highlighter marks the water mains where water pressure has been restored.

Nearly all the mains on the map are highlighted green, a recent success and step one of the water system recovery, said Phillips.

Pink dots on the map represent homes that burned. Black dots show those that are still standing. There are a few black clusters, but most of the map is pink.

Bob Alderson, left, loads a case of bottled water into a truck bed. Paradise residents, who are not supposed to drink the tap water due to contamination after the Camp Fire, are allowed one case per day per household. The water is donated and handed out by volunteers. Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

‘Extensively Damaged’

One working thesis about the cause of the contamination is this: During the fire the system lost pressure and the pipes were drained. That created a vacuum that may have allowed volatile organic chemicals like benzene, naphthalene, styrene, toluene, xylene, and others to be drawn into the system from the heated plastic pipes, fumes in the air, ash on the ground, or some combination.

Another theory: plastic pipes themselves, once burned, dislodged chemicals. But there is not enough data yet to know the exact cause, said Whelton, whose five-person Purdue team visited Paradise in February.

Paradise Irrigation District is not even close to understanding the extent of the contamination in its 173-mile network, Whelton and Phillips said. The district reckons that between 30,000 and 50,000 water samples will be needed in order to have an adequate statistical representation of the system. As of late February, the utility had received lab results for 237 samples, just half a percent of the target. Thus, Whelton’s appraisal that only military-style coordination and execution can produce all the samples needed in a reasonable amount of time.

“The mass of it is overwhelming,” Phillips said. “It’s tough to take it all in.”

Identifying contaminated pipes is further complicated by the peculiarities of Paradise’s network. It is a mix of pipe materials and ages: copper, plastic, cast iron, cement, all of which have different affinities for the chemicals. Whelton’s previous research shows that benzene binds well to plastic pipes and releases its grip much more slowly than with other materials.

“The chemicals like to be there, they like to hang around. So removing them is going to take a very long time, unless they identify a level of contamination that is unacceptable and they remove and replace that asset,” Whelton said.

“A long science project is what it’s becoming,” Phillips quipped.

Kevin Phillips, manager of Paradise Irrigation District, the town’s water provider, points to a cluster of homes that survived the Camp Fire. Black dots represent standing structures while pink dots signify the more than 90 percent of buildings in town that burned down. Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

Nothing Like It

Federal, state, and county agencies are in new territory as well. “This is, by far, above and beyond any previous events as far as drinking water systems,” said Dan Newton of the State Water Board.

Drinking water standards generally apply to the water that exits the treatment plant. In Paradise, water quality at that point meets all state and federal standards. The problem is not the source water or the treatment facilities. The only damage there was a blackened corner of the building and a melted exterior light now appearing to drip from the wall, like a Dali clock.

The problem is that the chemicals are within the distribution system and service lines that connect to individual homes. In that way, the benzene and other chemicals in Paradise are more like lead contamination in Flint, Michigan where levels vary house by house and even within houses.

The consensus opinion about how to solve the water emergency is to methodically identify contaminated pipes and isolate them from the rest of the system by shutting off water flow. Then either flush out the benzene and other chemicals, or replace the pipes if they are too severely degraded. Such a big water infrastructure renovation project will require an investment of time, money, manpower, and science that is of unprecedented scale in American history after a fire disaster.

State and federal agencies are not being much help. The State Water Board, which is in charge of drinking water standards, says that it is a regulatory body and is neither equipped for assisting Paradise with repairs and testing nor for public communication to residents about water sampling and testing. That is Paradise Irrigation District’s job. The State Water Board did some initial testing to give the district a boost, but the agency is not set up for a sustained testing program, Newton said.

The California Department of Public Health said it is not playing a role in the water system recovery, while the California Office of Emergency Services said that it is a support agency, but would not provide any personnel to help with sampling and testing.

“It’s a local disaster,” Jim Kyle, a CalOES spokesperson, told Circle of Blue. “We facilitate when local officials determine what they need.”

The Butte County Environmental Health Department also said that it is Paradise’s responsibility to inform home owners about water sampling and testing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is providing emergency funds, referred all questions about the water system to local and state officials.

Alone and Vulnerable

In effect Paradise is on its own. City authorities have just one model for how to proceed.

In October 2017, the Tubbs Fire burned part of Santa Rosa, a city of 175,000 that is an hour north of San Francisco. “We’re case number one,” Emma Walton, deputy director of engineering resources at Santa Rosa Water, told Circle of Blue. “So we have a data point of one. Santa Rosa was the first that I’m aware of to experience this.”

But the damage to Santa Rosa’s water system damage pales in comparison to Paradise. Walton said that Santa Rosa Water replaced 543 service lines on burned properties that were damaged by the fire. Paradise, by comparison, lost more than 9,000 homes, most of which will need their service lines replaced. Investigating the contamination, sampling, flushing contaminated pipes, and replacing service lines cost Santa Rosa Water about $8 million.

Even that was a slow process. “It took us nearly a year from identifying contamination from the fire in order to feel confident that we had removed the contamination,” Walton said.

Paradise residents, who have been told not to drink the tap water, can pick up donated bottled water outside the Paradise Irrigation District offices. Photo © Brett Walton/Circle of Blue

Coming Back Home

How many people will return to Paradise? That’s the pivotal question for the future of the town, and for the water system. Phillips said that straw polls taken via church groups and Facebook suggest perhaps a quarter of residents plan to return or rebuild. The Town Council is more optimistic, suggesting that 40 percent of residents might return with the next four years.

Whatever the number, the path to resuming contemporary life in Paradise is crowded with barriers.  

One is the personal and financial disarray within Paradise Irrigation District.

Thirty of the 36 employees and all five board members lost their homes in the fire. Since November, nine staff members left, either through retirement or moving away. Those who remain keep the water treatment plant running, take water samples, respond to customer requests, fix leaks, get water back into the mains, and turn on service for those who request it.

“We’re on a skeleton crew,” Phillips said.

The district is using cash reserves to cover operating expenses, and it has about $3.4 million in the bank. “If we don’t find a funding source, we’re not going to last very long,” Phillips said. “We’ll run out of reserves.”

The district also has a $1.4 million reimbursement credit with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But managing which tasks under FEMA rules qualify as reimbursable and which do not is confusing, Phillips said. Outside contractors are reimbursable but regular staff time is not. Staff overtime, however, is. He’s trying to ensure that as much as the district’s work as possible is reimbursable.

Paradise Irrigation District has not charged property owners for water since the fire. The first bills, which will be sent out in March, will include a $21.49 service fee. Property owners will have two options: pay the monthly fee, which is meant to signal that they are willing to be connected at some point in the future, or take out their water meter. Phillips thinks that perhaps 80 percent of residents will choose not to pay.

“How do you operate a system that doesn’t have revenue, but still has the physical infrastructure?” mused Darrin Polhemus, the head of the State Water Board’s Division of Drinking Water. That is one of many questions for which neither the State Water Board nor the district has an answer.

The district and its advocates are talking with lawmakers in Sacramento about a funding package. Dustin Cooper, a lawyer representing the district in those meetings, told the Paradise Irrigation District board that some amount of money is likely. “It’s not a question of whether to fund,” he said. “It’s a question of how much and for how many years.”

Another impediment to restoring stability in Paradise is public impatience. One resident told the Paradise Irrigation District board at its February 20 meeting that spring is coming and he wants to start watering his garden and bring his landscaping back to life.

“As time goes on and this doesn’t get resolved, pressure is going to build as people want to rebuild their homes,” said Bob Prevot, an Irrigation District board member.

But there are risks to returning. Home water treatment systems may not perform as advertised or may not be designed to remove the levels of contaminants that are in the town’s system. Residents may not know how to properly sample and test their water when checking for contaminants.

The third risk is to the Paradise water system. The more demands that are placed on the system from returning residents, the harder it is to isolate the chemicals and mend the pipes. Whelton likens it to a person in a serious accident who needs to go to the hospital for an emergency operation.

“The way it should be done is that the system should be identified and repaired, and then people should come back,” said Whelton. “But what’s happened is that people are already coming back and demanding to come back, and politicians are allowing them. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but that would be like someone on the operating table saying, ‘You know what, I’ve just got to do this one errand. You can come with me and look at my blood pressure, but you really need to walk with me while I’m going over here. I really need you to drive home with me, you can sit in the car, but I have to do this errand.’”

Yet the alternatives are not satisfying either. Barring people from connecting to the water system before it is cleared would add more uncertainty to people who are living interrupted lives, scattered across the state and country in trailers and makeshift housing. Requiring homes to have water tanks that are refilled by truck would be an added move-in cost and increase heavy traffic through town. Requiring homes to buy treatment systems would be expensive, cede control over water quality to households, and possibly be illegal under California law.

“This is going to be a long, long process for people to come back up,” Phillips said. “It’s going to take a lot of patience and a lot of time and a lot of understanding that this is not going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next year, that it’s going to be a long, long process.”