Well Wishes

in 2017, when Rafael Bolaños’ sprinklers started to falter. He’d bought his three-bedroom, one-bath house on 2 acres in 2002, when supply from the property’s well was plentiful. But over the years, more pistachio groves sprouted in the grassy fields surrounding his town of Madera, California. After an epic four-year drought, the once-reliable well struggled to pull from the underground aquifer that the Bolaños family and their neighbors shared with the new trees. So Bolaños, a construction worker who lives with his wife, Lorena, and their 14-year-old daughter, shelled out more than $3,000 to deepen the well by 70 feet and replace its pump, worn from drawing ever-deeper water. He let his lawn and most of their prized fruit trees—orange, lime, and peach—die back, and