DRY WELLS OF THE PASO BASIN: A TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS 2024
A feature documentary that investigates groundwater depletion, agricultural power, rural vulnerability, and environmental governance in California's Paso Robles basin. Combining ethnographic research and documentary storytelling, the film reveals how aquifer overdraft reshapes communities, landscapes, and the meaning of sustainability.
A tragedy of the commons occurs when an individual or group uses more than their share of a publicly owned resource for their self-interest, which leads to the depletion of the resource for the entire community. (William Foster Lloyd, 1833; Garret Hardin, 1968)
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Beginning in the 1990s, agricultural corporations and investors began buying thousands of acres of land with water rights in the county’s pastoral wine country. They planted new vineyards and drilled dozens of 800-foot-deep wells, pumping water from the Paso Basin into vast irrigation ponds. As vineyard expansion, population growth, and climate change intensified pressure on the aquifer, 200- to 400-foot wells that had long sustained homes, small farms, and ranches began to run dry.
For small landowners, a dry well is both an environmental crisis and an economic trap. Drilling deeper can cost $80,000, yet without water, land often loses the collateral value needed to finance a new well. The film follows three small landowners whose livelihoods, property, and hopes for the future have been threatened by the collapse of their water access. Through intimate observation and attention to local political struggle, the documentary examines how ordinary residents confront the corporate, environmental, and governmental forces reshaping access to the Paso Basin.
Scenes of dry taps, empty holding tanks, vineyard irrigation ponds evaporating in the sun, county meetings, and everyday acts of endurance reveal water not as an abstract resource, but as the condition of domestic life, land value, and political voice. At its center, the film asks what happens when those with the least power to deplete an aquifer bear the greatest burden of its over-draft.
TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/1008664313
DRY WELLS IS AVAILABLE TO VIEW ON:
The Cinema Verde Environmental Film and Arts Channel.
https://www.cinemaverde.org/events/cinema-verde-2025-environmental-film-festival
SELECTED SCREENINGS
- The World Water Film Festival, Chicago, Illinois, 5/4/2026.
- Seattle Film Festival, Seattle, Washington, 9/24/2025.
- Mysuru International Water Film Festival, Bangalore, India, 6/22/2025.
- Cinema Verde Environmental Film and Arts Festival, Jacksonville, Florida, 4/20/2025.
- WRPN Women's International Film Festival, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, 12/1/2024.
- "Best of Festival," WRPN Women's International Film Festival.
- "Best Feature Film," Mysuru International Water Film Festival.