Despite a record snowpack that has kept the South Fork of the Tule River flowing at a steady clip, residents of the Tule River Reservation – who get 60 percent of their supplies directly from the river – were recently without water for eight days. The problem, ironically, was too much water. Specifically, from Hurricane Hilary. When the late summer storm drenched dry, burn-scarred mountainsides, the runoff brought a torrent of muck with it and fouled the reservation’s intake and treatment system. But Hilary was just the tribe’s most recent go-round with water problems from an outdated system built to serve a fraction of the homes now on the reservation.