"He still doesn't want to believe that the ground is out of water" [View all]

[phantom power]

During a week when the temperature reached 106, Johnson drove her purple PT Cruiser past "Beware of dog" signs and up side roads that looked long-deserted. She found mobile homes hidden behind other buildings. She said to her newfound neighbors, "Hi. Do you have water?"

Again and again, the answer was no.

When Johnson's well ran dry in June, she and her husband, Howard, had no idea they were part of something bigger.

"I'd heard 'California drought!' on the news," she said. "But I guess I was just oblivious to how bad it had gotten."

At the local gas station where everyone stops for a cold soda, Johnson tuned in to the conversations.

"It was all, 'So-and-so's well ran dry,'" she said.

No public agency was keeping track. Until this week, California was the only Western state that didn't regulate groundwater, including an estimated 600,000 private, domestic wells mostly in more rural regions such as the Central Valley. Groundwater levels here have plunged by 60 feet or more in some spots, and tens of thousands of wells are in danger.

http://www.latimes.com/local/great-reads/la-me-c1-east-porterville-20140918-story.html#page=1