Police say that vandals damaged an inflatable dam in Fremont, California on Thursday, causing nearly 50,000,000 gallons of water to be lost, the Guardian reports. The lost water could have supplied 500 homes for a year.

The Alameda County water district said that it would take $3 million to repair the inflatable dam. No one has yet been arrested in connection with the incident.

“The dam, which is instrumental to the Alameda County Water District’s water supply operations, suffered irreversible damage,” police told Kron4.

“This is a very significant loss of water under any circumstances, and more so in the drought conditions we are experiencing,” the ACWD general manager, Robert Shaver, told the Guardian. “It is an utterly senseless, destructive, and wasteful thing to do.”

“While the water loss was substantial, the District does not believe it will have a long-term impact on its water supply operations,” the district told CBS San Francisco in a statement.

California is still in the grips of a four-year drought. In an unprecedented move, farmers in the state volunteered on Friday to reduce their water use by a quarter through the growing season.

Photo Credit: AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.