As California Lifts Drought Restrictions, Rural Areas Still Lack Running Water.
While the deep snowpack in California’s mountains is easing drought concerns, there are still people in the state’s rural Central Valley who don’t have water running from their taps.
In some of the hardest hit areas in the rural Central Valley, there are still thousands of people living without any running water.
By all accounts, California looks to be finally emerging from a brutal drought.
SIEGLER: In the gravel driveway of Mendez’s tidy stucco house is a huge, black 2,500-gallon water tank.
MENDEZ: Yeah, this is the well.
MENDEZ: Yeah, we go to the laundromat.
SIEGLER: People here are relieved that the governor’s emergency drought aid isn’t going away, as feared.
SIEGLER: So people here seem much more comfortable talking about the long-term solution going forward, which is to hook homes with dry wells onto nearby municipal water systems so there’s less risk.
SIEGLER: Roberto Aguilar, a fruit picker who lives on this street, tells Snyder that his family’s well hasn’t run out yet.