Bolinas Was Without Water for Hours. Its Aging Pipes Are a Big Problem

Bolinas’ aging water infrastructure and pipes that are beginning to corrode are creating a “ticking time bomb as they fail,” a top utility official said Monday after a leak left the entirety of the town without water for more than five hours over the weekend.

The Bolinas Community Public Utility District said Saturday night that it had to shut down all water distribution to the small, unincorporated area of Marin County after it discovered a leak that had seeped 300,000 gallons of water from its distribution system of two water tanks over 24 hours.

The town’s 1,200 residents were told to prepare to be without water for the night by filling up containers with the supply they would need while service was out.

The cause was a small hole in a saddle valve, which creates an offshoot to deliver water to just one customer from a larger pipe that carries the district’s water from its tanks to the town. But because of its position upstream along the distribution system, the whole town’s water had to be shut off.

“As soon as you have to shut that valve from the water tanks leading to town, that means that basically there’s no water being delivered,” said Georgia Woods, the BCPUD general manager.

Leaks like Saturday’s are becoming more common in recent years, she said, due to the age of the water system’s pipes.

“They were all pretty much installed at a similar point in time, and they’re basically corroding at the same time,” Woods told KQED. The system, she said, is “well past” its lifespan.

Since Woods took over as general manager in 2023, she said BCPUD has had to shut down the town’s water system due to similar leaks a few times. Staffers who had been at the agency for a decade told her they hadn’t had those kinds of shutoffs previously.

“That kind of tells you, it’s not super common events, but it looks like the frequency … is upticking, which obviously is not surprising given that the infrastructure is aging,” Woods said.

According to BCPUD meeting minutes, in February, one major leak on Birch Road required landscaping to be removed, and the water district had to call in a third-party contractor to repair another on Wharf Road. At that meeting, Woods also noted other smaller leaks, including one that was recurrent, on residential streets.

Many of these, she said, are due to corrosion that happens over time naturally and can be accelerated by environmental factors, like salt, on the coast. But as the system ages, it’s not easy to find the funds to modernize it.

“Especially in a rural district where you have very few customers, there’s not a lot of funding to really address the whole overhaul of the system that really would be very beneficial at this stage,” Woods said. “Instead, what we have to do is address these through these kind of little emergency band-aid type of [repairs].”

On Saturday, water was shut down across Bolinas between 6:30 p.m. and midnight, as contractor Piazza Construction conducted the emergency repairs.

After the line was restored, the system needed additional time to refill and rebalance.

“While the transmission main was not compromised, it is important to note that many service lines throughout the district are of similar age and materials,” BCPUD said in a statement after service was restored. “BCPUD’s system relies on components well beyond their original design life, with limited funding available for comprehensive replacement. These conditions increase the likelihood of emergency repairs until long‑term capital improvements can be fully funded and implemented.”

Bolinas is a small, isolated community on the North Bay coast that hasn’t grown significantly for decades.

In 1971, the town declared a water shortage emergency and put a moratorium on new water hookups, making it all but impossible for people to build and move into new homes in the area. In 2005, a rare freed-up water meter was auctioned off for more than $300,000, according to the Press Democrat.

While the conditions make it in some ways an idyllic coastal enclave, Bolinas’ size and status as an unincorporated area also mean it’s not easy to make the capital improvements its water system needs.

“The more rural you get, the worse the economics are,” Woods said. “You’re having to serve a smaller customer base with a more widespread infrastructure, which means you don’t have economies of scale when attending to these projects.”

It’s hard to pass the cost on to customers, Woods said, since the water district has a requirement to ensure access to affordable water.

She told KQED that the water district is looking at infrastructure bills at the state and federal levels to help make a major system overhaul possible, but she said recent leadership changes have changed that landscape, and less funding is available.

“It’s basically where to find that money,” Woods said. “It’s something that all of these districts are contending with, particularly rural districts across the nation.”