Twice a day, every day, Tim Roberge makes the journey to the end of his long driveway in Chelsea to fetch water for his 60 milking cows.

He loads a massive water tank onto a trailer hitched to his tractor, and drives it to the edge of a steep embankment. Scurrying down to the spring, he uses a hose to send water up and into the tank. Then Roberge drives back to the milking barn to fill up his cows’ water buckets.

“That’s my life twice a day,” he said. “Hauling it up. Hooking it up.”

Sabine Poux / Vermont Public

Roberge co-owns Oughta-Be Farm, an organic dairy. The farm's milking cows drink a lot of water — between 1,500 and 2,000 gallons a day.

Orange County — where Roberge lives — is in what the U.S. Drought Monitor calls “extreme drought.” It recorded the driest August in 130

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