"Familiar with the idiosyncrasies of our well and our water cycles, we know how to conserve, but what happens when a town, an industry, or even! a wide geographic region runs out of water? A simple pump and shallow well aren't enough to produce the many thousands of gallons consumed for every single need, and for cities and businesses to run dry is no longer exceptional, even in rainy western Oregon. Mt. Angel, a community situated in the northern Willamette Valley, currently faces this dilemma. Its surface rivers and streams are diminished and polluted, and its regional groundwater levels are dropping. In the search for an adequate source, panicky administrators and farmers are deepening existing wells, drilling new ones, or building dams for storage." from the Introduction viewed 6/8/2020.