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California’s Megadrought is Worse Than You Think

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Anne C. Mulkern

When Maria Regalado Garcia tried to wash the dishes in her California home one recent morning, only a trickle of water emerged from the kitchen faucet. Other taps in her Tooleville house in rural Tulare County ran similarly dry.

The lack of water meant Garcia, 85, couldn’t brush her teeth properly or fill a swamp cooler that pumps out chilled air — a necessity with temperatures topping 100 degrees in her central California town. So Garcia fled to her granddaughter‘s home in Exeter, a few minutes away, to have a place cool enough to sleep.

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‘Wonderful’: Tooleville Relieved in State’s Force for Water Consolidation

/in , , /by /The Sun Gazetteby Ben Irwin

Last week, the State Water Board finally intervened in the unincorporated area of Tooleville’s 20-year struggle to obtain the basic human right to clean drinking water with a letter to the city of Exeter and the Tooleville Mutual Nonprofit Water Association, giving the two parties six months to hash out terms for a voluntary consolidation of Tooleville to Exeter’s water system or face a mandatory order with much less cooperation.

How Drought Pressured California to Mandate Consolidation, Drinking Water for Tooleville

/in , , /by /The Fresno Beeby Jesse Vad

Life in Tooleville wasn’t easy before the latest drought.

Residents of this tiny, two-road farmworker community, tucked into the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills in eastern Tulare County, have been living on bottled water since 2014 because its two wells are contaminated with hexavalent chromium.

Then in July, one of those wells started to dry up, thanks to plummeting groundwater levels. State Water Resources Control Board officials agree Tooleville’s other well will likely hit sand in a matter of months.

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