Clearlake Residents Sue Over 3-Million-Gallon Sewage Spill
Knut S. Johnson, Partner at Singleton Schreiber, was featured by Daily Journal in an article titled “Clearlake residents sue over 3-million gallon sewage spill,” published on May 8, 2026.
When a sewer pipeline ruptured in Clearlake, it did not just spill nearly 3 million gallons of raw sewage into a residential neighborhood. It spilled into people's private wells, their yards, and their daily lives. Knut S. Johnson is representing those residents in a lawsuit filed against Lake County and its sanitation agencies, fighting to hold the responsible parties accountable.
At the heart of the complaint is a troubling pattern: aging infrastructure, inoperable safety equipment, and a history of prior spills and regulatory warnings that went unaddressed. According to the lawsuit, this was not a system that failed without warning. It was one that showed signs of failure long before the rupture occurred.
“The Clearlake Sewage Spill was not an unpredictable accident, but the foreseeable and preventable consequence of Defendants’ systemic failure to inspect, maintain and repair aging infrastructure despite years of regulatory warnings, prior spills, and documented deficiencies…” Johnson wrote in the complaint.
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