BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — A black pipe that is now going through a mobile home community is the temporary fix for a water issue that occurred last week. Residents 23ABC spoke with on Monday said it was a struggle to take showers, brush their teeth, and just live. But now they're concerned they could be without water again.
“It kinda sucked.”
“Big problem.”
“Dia muy caliente, sin agua, mucha problema.”
Those were some of the reactions from residents in the De-Rancho-Y Mobile Villa after they went without water for nearly four days after their water well went dry. Residents like Olga Apricio and Yardley Lopez say they couldn’t even clean themselves.
“I take water from the pool and put it in the toilet. Si, and I try to because it's very hard for 4 days not take a shower,” said Apricio.
“It was pretty struggling like. It was hard to take a shower. It was hard to drink water,” added Lopez.
Apricio also says while management tried to help it was still a very difficult time.
“They brought at least I think like 6 boxes for each of the homes, but that’s not enough. We want to shower. We want constantly to have water all the time.”
23ABC spoke to the Department of Water Resources earlier this month about how a well goes dry.
“A water well is a hole that’s drilled into the ground, at variable depths, and a pipe is put in that well and a pump is put in that well," explained Steven Springhorn, program manager for the Department of Water Resources Sustainable Groundwater Management. "How deep the pump is set, and the regional and local groundwater conditions around that well, really all factor into how a well goes dry.”
According to the state’s dry well reporting system in Kern County, there’s been one well that’s gone dry in the last 30 days. Fifteen outages were reported between the last month to a year and 26 were reported in the last year.
And after four days of this well being dry Cal Water installed a new temporary line Friday.
While water is flowing once again residents expressed worry over the safety of drinking that water. However, we reached out to Cal Water and the utility confirmed that the water is safe to drink.
Meanwhile, Apricio says the water is still supposed to be cut off at some point once the long-term solution is implemented. That’s why she says she's doing what she can to preserve water and Lopez says while his family is able to bring water from their restaurant it's important to save as much as you can.
“Save your water. It’s a lot of water dried out, so just to save your water.”
It's also important to note that the temporary water system in the community cannot be damaged in any way. Residents cannot walk, drive or even touch the line or the water might be shut down again.
