BELMONT – Usually at this time of year, well driller Doug Cross spends his days in the shop getting his trucks and equipment ready for spring.

But with a drought that has caused hundreds of Maine wells to run dry, Cross and his crew are working from dawn to dark to keep up with the demand for their services.

“You try to wind down this time of year, not gear up,” said Cross. “We try to shut down if we can. But not this year. In winter we like to pick our days, but we aren’t getting that option this year.”

Brothers Doug and Gary Cross run the family business, founded by their grandfather 81 years ago. There have been many tales and legends about the dry wells and the gushers that are passed on by the three generations of well drillers involved in the business.

But none top the hard-luck stories they have heard this year.

Since early summer scores of people with dug wells have seen them go dry. Then they have waited in line to have a replacement well drilled. E.A Cross & Sons replaced more than 40 dry wells with drilled wells this summer. The company has a backlog of 25 wells waiting, and it has put off many others, such as for new home builders, until they can deal with those most in need.

“People are desperate and I really feel bad for them because it’s getting ridiculous,” Cross said. “A lot of these people have never been without water and a lot of them, especially young families with little kids, are quite frantic. I know they’re hurting, but we’re going as fast as we can. I tell them all the same thing, ‘I’ll do it as soon as I can.’ They do adapt to being without water, though – because when they call me up again to see where they are on the list, they’re a lot calmer.”

Cross said he and his brother have drilled more than 5,000 wells over their nearly 30 years in the business and have never seen anything like the conditions they have encountered this year. He said he has opened dug wells and found them bone dry with rocks white as snow on the bottom.

“The groundwater is just about gone,” he said. “There’s not a drop of moisture left in the ground.”

As a result, if people want water, they have to drill deep to get it.

According to the National Weather Service, Cross’ observation is dead on. Spokesman Thomas Hawley in the Gray office said Maine was in the grip of a two-year drought and just went through its driest summer in more than a century. He said groundwater levels that were already 5 inches below normal in August 2000 now have reached double digits. Belfast is 18 inches below normal for 2001, and 25 inches below normal since August 2000.

“The whole state is bad, and the worst is Belfast and Down East. We need an awful lot of rain,” Hawley said.

Hawley said the state would need to receive 10 inches of rain in a week to bring groundwater levels back to somewhere approaching normal. He said that was unlikely to happen until next spring, if then. He noted that groundwater storage areas will not recharge during the winter. Groundwater usually is replenished by the spring snowmelt and the rains of fall.

“We need a big snowpack to build the levels back up,” Hawley said. “It appears we’re in a more active weather pattern, so we do stand a chance of getting some storms and as long as we stay in that pattern we’ve got a chance. We really need a strong winter storm that really wallops everybody.”

Even if Maine is covered with snow this winter, the benefits will not be felt until next year. The fact that the drought will continue through the winter prompted Gov. Angus King to advise Mainers to conserve their water.

Cross said nearly all the wells that have gone dry were dug. But he has encountered one drilled well that had gone dry. That well was drilled to a depth of 60 feet by his grandfather in 1941. When they drilled for a new well, the Crosses struck water at 150 feet.

Cross said there is no precise depth at which to locate water, but he recommends that wells go beyond 100 feet deep. He has found water above that level and has drilled dry wells 1,000 feet below the surface. Cross said he has used dowsers – people who walk the land with sticks -but they have come up dry as well. He said the best method is to find an area near the house, start drilling and hope you hit water.

“Each well has got its own mind. You could drill 10 wells within a 40-foot square and each one would be different,” he said. “Nobody can say for sure that there’s water down there. They might say they can. But let me tell you, you can’t prove it by me.”

Cross said it costs $9 a foot to drill and $9 a foot for metal casing when needed. Wells drilled through rock require less casing; wells drilled through soil and gravel require more. It costs another $1,000 for a pump and to run an underground waterline from the well to the house. The trench for the water line must be at least 4 feet deep.

Cross said his crew has been out digging trenches at sites where they have yet to drill wells to get ahead of the frost. Once the ground freezes, digging gets even more difficult, he said.

That is why people have continued to call to get on his list and the lists of the other drillers in the area. Cross said he has spoken to other drillers and they are working as much as his company. He said drillers who usually go to Florida for the winter have stayed put.

Cross said the strain of being without water seems to take more of a toll on the younger generations than on older people. He said people who grew up using a hand pump take a dry well in stride.

“Take a drive out in the country and you’ll see all these garbage cans under people’s roofs. They’re there for another reason these days,” he said. “The older people know what to do, they’re getting by pretty easy if you want to know the truth.”

Cross’ crew begins early in the morning and stays through dark. It’s hard, cold work at this time of year.

“You have to be half a fool to be a driller,” he said. “Standing there watching that drill can get pretty bad in the winter. It gets cold, real cold. And then you get one where the water comes blasting out like a gusher. Course that only happens when it’s 10 below zero.”

The need to get water has prompted some homeowners to offer additional bonuses to move their way up a driller’s list. Carl Rudnicki, a driller from Carmel, said one man offered him an all-expenses-paid fishing trip to Canada next summer if he could get his well in by Christmas. Rudnicki had to turn him down because he was already booked through next summer.

Cross said no one had made him any special offers and even if they had “it wouldn’t do them any good. We’re just so busy it doesn’t make [any difference] to us.”

Cross said he and his brother have talked about buying a second drilling rig but that would mean the two would have to work apart. Each rig requires a licensed operator and an investment of around $600,000. He said they haven’t closed the door on the idea but are too busy keeping the family business going to give it much thought.

“We’ve been so fortunate. My grandfather had a good name. My father carried it on and we’re trying to carry it on, too,” Cross said. “We want to drill. We love to drill for people. It’s our business, but the worst part this year is making them wait.”