CALIFORNIA / MADERA COUNTY
Fairmead
Restricted
- Population (2020)
- 1,235
- Water cut
- July 2020
- Cause
- groundwater
- Where
- 37.08°N, 120.19°W
What happened, and when
Every dated water event the register holds for Fairmead, newest first, each with the sources that document it.
- Restrictedon the card
Restricted: what happened
In July 2020 Madera County ordered the roughly 165 households on Fairmead's only community well to stop all outdoor watering under a stage 4 mandatory restriction, after the well's pump began drawing air as the water table fell beneath it and the county had no backup source. The county expedited a replacement well that December. Most of the town is on private wells, which began failing in 2014 and failed again in the 2020 to 2022 drought, with more than a dozen dry between 2018 and 2020.
- Madera County Public Works (via CEQAnet): Maintenance District 33 replacement of municipal well, ponding basin and meters (CEQA notice of exemption) (December 1, 2020)
- The Fresno Bee (via Fresnoland): This Madera County community is running out of water, and the only well might fail (August 18, 2020)
- SJV Water (via GV Wire): Madera County residents plagued by dry wells hope new recharge basin will help (September 27, 2026)
- Ran dry
Private household wells fail as the water table falls
Most of the town is on private wells, which began failing in 2014; by April 2015 taps were running dry.
- KVPR: Taps run dry in Fairmead, 'watch, I get nothing' (April 13, 2015)