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There’s something different about Will Bucklin’s grape vines. At first it’s hard to notice, but a drive through northern California’s Sonoma Valley, past waves of green, manicured vineyards, makes it clear. The black ribbon of PVC irrigation pipe that typically threads the vines is curiously absent here – because Will doesn’t water his crops.

Bucklin’s Old Hill Ranch, purchased by his stepfather Otto Teller in 1980, claims to be the oldest-rooted vineyard in the area. Teller fell in love with the vineyard because it was one of the few that still “dry-farmed”.

California’s attempt to exert tighter control over groundwater use, the purpose of a landmark 2014 state law, was designed to be a compromise between state authority and local oversight.

The tension dogged the writing of the law two years ago, and is playing out again as the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) drafts the regulations that will put the law into practice. The regulations in question are those that the state will use to evaluate groundwater sustainability plans, the 20-year planning documents required of local management agencies by the 2014 law.

The U.S. Drought Monitor released May 5 shows some minor improvement in California drought conditions. But looking ahead to the dry season shows drought persisting for a fifth consecutive year in the Golden State.

In California, some moderate drought was removed in the northern portion of the state. The extreme northwest portion of the state accounts for the 4.27 percent of California where there is no drought. But 96 percent remains abnormally dry, with 89 percent in moderate, 74 percent in severe, 49 percent in extreme and 21 percent in exceptional drought.

Louie Campos stopped drinking the water from his faucets in Visalia, California, so long ago that it takes him a minute to recall just how many years it has been since he held a glass to the tap and took a swill. By his closest approximation, the plainspoken 43-year-old has ripped through a 24-pack of bottled water a week for the last eight years. Bottled water, he says, is a hidden tax Visalia’s residents must pay to live there.