After a forest fire in Paradise, California, the water is contaminated but residents return: NPR

Six months after the deadliest and most destructive fire in California's history, the city of Paradise remains a disaster area. Only 6% of last November's campfire debris was transported. Car skeletons burned, heaps of toxic rubble and old blackened pines are still visible everywhere.

Before the fire, the population of paradise was about 26,000 people. Today, it is by the hundreds.

The magnitude of the last crisis in paradise is not yet known: the deadly fire could also have contaminated up to 173 km of pipelines in the water distribution network of the city with benzene and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs), responsible for cancers. Preliminary results showed contamination in about one-third of the lines tested, although only about 2% of the entire system was sampled.

Still, the water crisis is only the last setback that has questioned the fact that the city was ready to reopen.

And some had no choice but to go back.

"As soon as the house was cleaned, our insurance company told us we had to go home," said Kyla Awalt.

Awalt's house on Bille Road is the only one that remains strangely in the rubble of what was once his neighborhood. His family had planned to return, eventually. In January, however, they were informed that their "additional living expenses" were exhausted. But there was no drinking water in town at the time, nor today.

They considered selling. But how to put a house on the market if it does not have water?

"You can not," said Awalt. "It's part of the inspection process."

So they bought a huge water tank, to pay $ 6,500. He is sitting in the shade of an old walnut tree along the fence of his property. On the other side of the fence are the rubble of what was his neighbor's house. There are piles of debris and a couple of mutilated and burned lawn mowers waiting to be taken away.

Awalts spend $ 250 to fill the water tank every few weeks. It is expensive, but it is peace of mind.

"It's a bit up to the owner," says Awalt. "It's up to them to understand it."

Before the camp fire, Paradise was renowned as a community of bedrooms and an affordable retreat for retirees. A large part of the population tended to drive down revenues and the idea that they are now on their own is alarming for experts like Andrew Whelton.

"This does not protect public health," says Whelton, a civil engineer who built his career advising the US military on how to restore water infrastructure after a disaster. "This is not what we are supposed to do with a population that has suffered such a trauma, we are supposed to help it."

Whelton, now at Purdue University, recently consulted the city's leading water supplier, the Paradise Irrigation District. The utility is trying to determine the source of the contamination, whether it is burned plastic pipes and meters or toxic waste from the burned structures that have been thrown into the water pipes of the city. Much of the city's housing stock was older and had no back-up protection.

"The extent of recovery efforts and tests needed in my experience here will be unprecedented," Whelton said.

This is probably unprecedented, but it's also a warning for other cities located in high-risk fire zones.

District Director Kevin Phillips said his staff was overwhelmed.

"There is no cookbook for a forest fire that destroys a city and you have a depressurization system that creates contamination," Phillips said.

The district system, which was built in the 1950s and was already reputed to be obsolete and poorly designed, has 10,500 lines of service. Phillips says the plan is to prioritize testing in neighborhoods where houses are still standing and to close and isolate contaminated sites.

The system will take years to repair. The tests alone could take more than two years.

"We feel that we are under the microscope of the nation right now, that we are going to be the reason why the city is not rebuilding … .If there is no water there is no city, "Phillips said.

But Phillips says that they will not do anything in a hurry that could jeopardize public health. As more and more people try to return home, the public service hopes to buy and deliver tanks with clean water – a program is expected to begin later this month. But no one yet knows who will pay for it.

Whelton is concerned that people living here will remain at unknown risk.

"In a disaster of this magnitude, it's one of the takeaways here," he says. "In the absence of any credible authority providing assistance to a population, it will do what it takes to survive."

At the moment, there are strict warnings that people who return to their homes should not drink or even boil water, let alone use it for any household activity unless it has been tested. Whelton says some residents buy water filtration systems that are not safe enough to withstand high VOC readings, or rely on spot testing for contaminants.

Pat Zinn, 79, whose house was spared for four decades, had her water tested three months ago. He showed everything clear.

"They said it might change, so I should have it tested again, but it's $ 100 every time you test it, so I guess I play," Zinn says.

Zinn drinks free bottled water, but she uses tap water for most other tasks.

"Anyway, something will win me one day," says Zinn. "So I'm not really worried about that."

She laughs as she tries to understand the last setback to the recovery of her city. She is especially concerned about Paradise's survival, which she says depends on the resolution of the water crisis.

"It's the big thing," she says. "If we do not take it in charge, the city will die."