You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with NPR alum, now independent science writer Dan Charles.

Hi, Emily.

Hi.

So I hear you just got back from the front lines of the California water wars.

One battle in those wars, what I call the Great California groundwater grab. Yeah.

We talked about this on the show years ago, how farmers in California have been pumping huge amounts

of water from their wells to irrigate their crops. They have been pumping so much water. The

aquifer has been shrinking. An aquifer, of course, is just the underground water table.

It's what you tap into when you dig a well. Yeah. And in fact, people's home wells have been going dry because

farmers were using up all that water. In some places, the ground itself's been sinking.

That's not good. Not good, Dan. But things are changing, Emily. Local officials are telling farmers in some areas you cannot pump so much water from your wells anymore.

How big of a change is this for farmers?

It is huge.

You know, some farmers never really believe this could happen.

I got a sense of that talking to one farmer named Locke Brar.

He grows almonds and lots of other crops

near the town of Madeira. And we never thought that somehow the government would have control of the

water beneath our feet. That was not even a thought. Up till now, that water beneath his feet was

just free for the taking, like breathing the air. And now it is something

else entirely. Yeah, this is a paradigm shift in how people think about water. Yeah. Now people are

watching how much you use. If you use too much, you're going to get fined. So today on the show,

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