“We’re probably seeing more now than we’ve ever seen in the past,” said Tami McVay, program director of Self-Help Enterprises, a community development organization that, among other things, operates a tank and hauled-water program for low-income families.Ĭurrently, some 1,600 households are receiving water assistance from Self-Help, and an additional couple hundred are relying on community water tanks, she said.Īlthough California declared a decade ago that all residents have a right to clean, safe and affordable drinking water, the number of household dry wells has continued to rise. The actual number of dry wells is likely higher because reporting is voluntary.Īreas with the highest number of well failures included Fresno, Madera, Tulare and Tehama counties - Central Valley regions where surface water shortages have driven growers to drill deeper and deeper irrigation wells.

This year, nearly 1,400 household wells have been reported dry - a nearly 40% increase over the same period last year, and the highest annual number reported since 2013, when the California Department of Water Resources launched the Dry Well Reporting System. The crisis has hit rural farming areas particularly hard and left some families to fend for themselves or wait years for permanent solutions as nonprofits, state water officials and well drillers struggle with a growing backlog of assistance requests. “It’s just like, one after another of these wells just keep popping dry, and if we have another hot summer like this year and last year, or rainfall, it’s going to double.”Īcross California, domestic wells are drying up in record numbers due to severe drought and the overpumping of underground aquifers. “I call it a silent disaster because it’s not like hurricanes where everything is getting blown over,” Fred Imfeld, 70, said of the well failures.

JUST LIKE THAT by Sandra Wells