Next week, California shuts off the water. So says the letter my parents received from their local water district, informing them that the water supplied to the district’s farms in Northern California will be no more. This year, the North Valley will not be filling its water canals.

My parents own a 33-acre orchard and my other family members lease or own farmland all over my hometown. A few years ago, when rainfall began to diminish and irrigation prices began to rise (and environmentalists appeared determined to make all water policy beholden to the goal of saving an endangered three-inch fish, the delta smelt), my parents drilled their own well to irrigate their orchard—as did many other farmers in the area.