RIO VERDE, Ariz. — It takes John Hornewer over an hour to drive from Rio Verde Foothills to a water-filling station in Apache Junction.
"The things we're going to have to do for water," said Hornewer as he rounded the back of his water truck.
It will then take him another three hours to fill his truck, and an hour to drive back. All before he delivers a single drop to a customer.
"I used to be able to do seven, eight trucks in a day," he said. "Now I'd be lucky to do two."
About 500 homes in Rio Verde Foothills rely on hauled water. Hornewer used to be able to fill up at a standpipe owned by the City of Scottsdale. But Scottsdale cut them off because the community is outside the city limits and the city wants to conserve its water in the midst of a record drought.
The homeowners have tried every method available to get a permanent source of water. But each has failed.
Now, Hornewer has to find other places to fill up his trucks. All of them are far away. All of them take a long time to fill the truck. This filling station in Apache Junction takes so long for one reason: it's coin-operated.
As Hornewer opened his truck's passenger door, he pulled out a bucket of change: it was the coins that he's saved from his pocket.
"Never thought I'd be feeding the meter," he said.
And he can't just insert 87 quarters, which is the amount he needs to fill up a 6,000-gallon truck. Instead, the filling station runs for two minutes per coin.
Once it shuts off, Hornewer has to insert another quarter. And so on, and so on, until it puts 6,000 gallons in the truck.
Because of the drive time and the filling time, Hornewer can't get enough water to fill up every customer who wants it. But he's one of the only games in a town that has no other options.
“I'm not going to stop," he said. "These aren't numbers, these are people, these are my friends, these are my neighbors...I can't stop."
Regardless of how long it takes, Hornewer said he'll keep making the trips to ensure Rio Verde's residents have access to water.
"I'm gonna give them water," Hornewer said. "It's gonna take me a while but I'm gonna give them water."
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