McGinty's Ascent Productions

                         

A tragedy of the commons occurs when an individual or group uses more than their share of a publicly owned resource for their self-interest, which leads to the depletion of the resource for the entire community. (William Foster Lloyd, 1833; Garret Hardin, 1968)

I collaborated with Boris Jocoy, Artistic Director of ShadoWalker Media, on Dry Wells of The Paso Basin: A Tragedy of the Commons, a feature length, point-of-view documentary. We investigated the environmental status of San Luis Obispo County's Paso Basin. A few decades ago, agricultural corporations and other investors began buying thousands of acres of cultivated and uncultivated land with water rights in the County's pastoral wine country. They planted new vineyards and drilled dozens of 800 feet in depth wells that pump the Paso Basin's water into vast irrigation ponds. Beginning around 2010, wells of 200 to 400 feet in depth that had long provided fresh water from the Basin for residences and small farms and ranches began drying up. Most of the folks with dry wells cannot afford the $60,000 to $80,000 needed to drill deeper, and without water, their land has no collateral value for a loan. This documentary tells that story through a focus on three small landowners whose properties, livelihoods, and hopes for their futures have been crushed by dried up wells -- and by following how they and their neighbors organize social force to participate in local political process to assert their water rights, and their environmental concerns for the Paso Basin.


FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL SELECTIONS

• The Documentaries Without Boundaries International Film Festival.
• The WRPN Women's International Film Festival.