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“I think the lack of rain over the past 2 years has just diminished the ground water and it's just not what it used to be,” said Kingman County resident Brian Rice.
Doing daily tasks like showering and laundry becomes difficult for some Kingman County residents, and the continuing drought is to blame. Two years of too little rain has some wells running dry.
“The tree out here lost most of it's leaves,” said Rice.
For two years, Rice has watched the drought destroy his lawn.
“The leaves just started changing color and then they just eventually dried up and now they're gone,” said Rice.
He noticed the water pressure slow down more than a year ago, but now water barely flows into the house.
“Water is something we've taken for granted, and now that we have a limited amount you learn to appreciate that a lot more,” said Rice.
He has to go out of town to get water for his livestock. Taking a shower or doing laundry has been difficult too.
“It's been frustrating. It's hard,” said Rice.
Rice blames the drought for the hardship.
“I don't know what our average rainfall has been for the last 2 years but it's significantly less than what the normal average is,” said Rice.
So he's hired Darling Drilling Company to strike water.
“Hopefully going in a little deeper in a different spot, we'll hit a different vain and have better luck,” said Rice.
100 feet to be exact- close to twice as deep as before through hard red shale. There's no guarantee they'll actually hit that vane though. Still, these drillers say they're in greater demand this year than the last.
“This year, the more I get done, I've got 4 more the next day to do. Everybody's calling and everybody's needing water and we're trying to get to them the fastest we can,” said well driller Austin James McGinnes.
It’s an expensive fix. Rice will pay thousands of dollars for the new water line to his house, but he's thankful to get the problem resolved.
“I'm happy. I'm hoping this all works out and we'll get back to normal,” said Rice.
Typically that drilling company sees business taper off as winter approaches. This year the drillers tell us they have a month backlog of jobs to get done.