LAKEPORT — Since 1983, Lake County’s five supervisors have run the sewer system that serves much of the county with no other government at the table. On Tuesday, they took the first real step toward changing that — and toward handing the city of Clearlake a seat — six months after a ruptured main buried a Clearlake neighborhood under nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage.
The board voted unanimously to adopt a resolution of intent to restructure the Lake County Sanitation District, known as LACOSAN, which runs five wastewater systems around the county, including the Southeast Regional system that serves Clearlake. Until now, the five county supervisors have also served as the district’s board of directors.
The vote is the latest turn in a fight between Clearlake and the county over who answers for the sewer system — a dispute that’s simmered since 2024 and sharpened after the January spill.
Under the plan, no single government would hold a majority. The interim board would have five seats: two county supervisors — the board chair and one member routed through the Kelseyville County Waterworks District No. 3 — two Clearlake City Council members, including the mayor and one seat routed through the Hidden Valley Lake Community Services District, and one member of the public. Supervisors directed staff to start taking applications for the public seat.
The county’s action is conditional. The Clearlake City Council has to approve the same resolution, which it’s set to consider Thursday. If the city signs on, the county opens a 30-day public comment period and then holds a public hearing, set for Aug. 18, where the interim appointments would be made.
The restructuring runs through a section of California’s Health and Safety Code that governs how sanitation districts are led. Clearlake had handed its authority over the district to the county in 1983, the year the city incorporated. The council rescinded that delegation in November, a step supervisors said left the county legally obligated to give the city a seat, according to Lake County News. Negotiations between the two governments began in March.
It started on Jan. 11. That Sunday morning, a 16-inch LACOSAN force main broke near Robin Lane and Pond Road, inside Clearlake’s city limits. Before crews stopped it the next night, an estimated 2.9 million gallons of raw sewage spread across hundreds of acres, and about 3,900 gallons reached a drainage ditch that runs to Burns Creek and into Clear Lake. The spill left 164 homes that depend on private wells without safe running water. City officials have called it the largest spill in the area in two decades.
The county’s response drew criticism from the start. Supervisors approved $750,000 for emergency water tanks 10 days after the rupture, later leaned on county disaster reserves for the cleanup, and installed filtration systems for affected homes. Dozens of residents have since sued the county over the spill.
Clearlake, which had pressed for a governance role for two years, escalated after the spill. In May, the city council voted to file formal complaints against the district, demand records and pursue detaching the local sewer system from county control entirely — a process the city has begun with a consultant. City leaders have framed the interim board as a faster fix while that longer effort plays out, and have said they were prepared to sue over representation if the county didn’t act.
The rushed timeline drew warnings at Tuesday’s meeting. The county treasurer-tax collector cautioned that abruptly changing the district’s governance could complicate basic county financial operations, from payroll to paying invoices, before the August deadline. Lake County News reported that staff had been scrambling since the item surfaced on the agenda days earlier. Several residents urged the board to slow down, questioning the fairness and legality of the plan — including a procedural step in which the supervisors, sitting as the Kelseyville waterworks board, delegated one of the new seats to themselves. Supervisors said much of the negotiation had taken place in closed session because of the threat of litigation.
The Clearlake City Council takes up the resolution Thursday. If both sides hold, the reshaped board would be seated after the Aug. 18 hearing.
Even that may not settle it. Clearlake is still drawing up plans to pull its sewer system out of county hands for good.