BOLIVAR, Mo. -- All around the Ozarks, communities are enacting water usage restrictions.
The situation is so bad here that city leaders issued a state of emergency last week and said anyone who ignores the newly-issued mandates would be fined.
"No one else is watering, and everybody is burning up. I don't think there's any hope really," said Caleb Smith, a Bolivar resident.
Like the majority of people in Bolivar, Smith has already given up the hope of having a lush lawn this year.
"I would hope it'll be green and full again, but that's going to be a long time, probably," Smith said.
Bolivar taps into the same underground water source that supplies about a third of the state. City Administrator Darin Chappell said the aquifer on which the city relies is running low.
"We have responsibilities that extend beyond whether or not I get to water my yard today," Chappell said.
There are five wells that supply the City of Bolivar. The demand on the system has been so great in the last couple weeks that city leaders already had to shut down one of those wells.
"The problem is that, 60 years ago, although the drought was the same effectively as it is today, the population density wasn't," Chappell said.
City leaders mandated last week that people only water their lawns during early morning hours and twice a week at the most. If citizens do not comply, Chappell said they will face $100 fines and the possibility of seeing their water shut off.
