South’s Dry Spell Travels North
October 18, 2008 by Editor
Filed under The Northeast, The Southeast
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) — The drought that has plagued the Deep South for more than a year is creeping northward, and officials in multiple states are restricting outdoor burning in the face of water shortages and forest fire risks from falling leaves and tinder-dry conditions.
Extreme drought conditions, the second-worst possible, have now spread into Kentucky, and severe conditions have returned to West Virginia and southwest Virginia, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“The last three months have sucked every bit of moisture we’ve had,” said Ben Webster, a fire staff assistant for the West Virginia Division of Forestry.
In eastern Kentucky, retailers are sending bottled water to drought-stricken Magoffin County after its primary water source, the Licking River, fell to low levels and residents were told to conserve tap water. The county’s school system is serving meals on disposable plates with plastic utensils. Lunch trays have been temporarily shelved to save on dishwashing.
Kentucky also suffered through a severe drought a year ago, but “this is probably the worst that I’ve had to deal with,” said Joe Hunley, Magoffin County’s schools superintendent.
Tens of thousands of gallons of bottled water have been distributed through a fire department and a water company alone. “We’re bringing water in daily and distributing it to those people who are in need,” said county health director Berti Salyer. “Of course, that’s just about everyone in Magoffin County right now.”
Read full article
Source: CNN
Water Usage Up and Reservoirs on Decline in Hawaii
WAILUKU – Periodic but isolated showers on windward and mauka areas of the islands had little effect on the watersheds, Maui County Water Director Jeff Eng reported Friday.
In his weekly water use report, Eng said water use was up by 620,000 gallons a day in the Central Maui and Upcountry systems, while the water sources for the Upcountry system have continued to falter.
“I would like to remind our customers of our request for Upcountry customers to reduce water usage by 5 percent and our Central customers to reduce water usage by 10 percent,” he said. “It’s been a dry week and the upcountry reservoirs have been steadily dropping, going from 100.6 million gallons on October 2 to 81.4 million gallons on October 10. That is less than half of the total storage capacity of 180 million gallons.”
The islands as a whole continue to dry out even with occasional trade-wind showers, with the Big Island suffering the worst of the abnormally dry conditions. The U.S. Drought Monitor expanded the area of North Kohala under extreme drought, increasing the area rated extreme drought from 10 percent to 12.3 percent of the islands.
Read full article
Source: The Maui News
In California, Drought Prompts Closure of Boat Launch
October 14, 2008 by Editor
Filed under The Southwest
HEMET – Private boat launches in the Inland Empire’s largest reservoir – Diamond Valley Lake – will be indefinitely suspended starting Tuesday because of low lake levels caused by drought, according to the Metropolitan Water District.
In the meantime, the MWD board of directors Tuesday will discuss options for lengthening the boat ramp so private boats can once again access the lake.
Since 2006, levels at the lake have receded 70 feet, according to Bob Muir, spokesman for the MWD, which runs the reservoir. Of that 70 feet, 24 feet of water has disappeared since January, Muir said.
The water level at the storage facility has dropped to the end of the boat ramp, making it dangerous for private boats to launch. Small fishing boats and rental pontoons can still be used, Muir said.
“This action speaks volumes about the seriousness of the water-supply situation Southern California faces next year, particularly should we not rise to meet the water-saving challenge that’s before us,” said Metropolitan General Manager Jeff Kightlinger.
Read full article
Source: The Union Tribune
Ethiopia Says It Needs $266 Million for Emergency Drought Aid
October 14, 2008 by Editor
Filed under World's Water
By Jason McLure
Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Ethiopia needs $266 million to help feed 6.4 million people suffering from food shortages due to drought, an increase of 1.8 million since June, the government said.
Millions of peasant farmers and pastoralists in the Horn of Africa country are struggling to cope with the affects of the failure of the short rains in February and March, known as the “belg,” Mitiku Kassa, the state minister for agriculture and rural development, said today in the capital, Addis Ababa.
“It is unprecedented, the failure of the belg,” Kassa said at a meeting with international donors. “We need additional resources.”
International relief agencies need 270,245 metric tons of food to meet aid needs from September to December of this year. Donors have pledged less than two-thirds of the aid requests made earlier this year, Kassa said.
About 80 percent of Ethiopians rely on rain-fed farming even though the economy has experienced double-digit growth over the past four years. Beyond the number of people needing emergency aid, another 7.4 million people depend on a donor- funded “safety-net” program that provides food to families for at least six months of the year.
Ethiopia, a nation of 78 million people, now has 50,000 tons of food in its emergency reserves, down from 400,000 normally.
Shortages of emergency food reserves hampered the response effort to the drought earlier this year, the agriculture ministry said in a report today.
Read full article
Source: Bloomberg
Report says Utah is second-driest state
September 19, 2008 by Editor
Filed under The Southwest
The past few wet winters have been good to arid Utah, but history has proven that drought conditions will be here again, and the Utah Foundation wants to warn people about wasting water.
A foundation report released Thursday said that over a 29-year period, Utah was the second driest state in the nation. Nevada was the driest from 1971 to 2000, receiving less precipitation than any other state.
In Utah, two thirds of all nonpotable and potable water sources used by residents went toward outdoor use, such as watering lawns. The report urged elected officials to continue to work on water conservation strategies that will help maintain water supply and reduce water usage levels during both drought and sufficient water periods.
The Utah Foundation is a 60-year-old Utah-based nonprofit, nonpartisan group that offers information to policy makers on a variety of issues. Foundation president Stephen Kroes said in an interview that the report was intended to show people where Utah’s water comes from, where it’s used and what the state’s water cycles are like.
“Utah has done an adequate job of providing water supplies for the population we have,” Kroes said. “There’s certainly room for conservation.”
As for future water projects that will be developed by the state, Kroes said planning for the next 50 years will be contentious.
In its 2008 Utah Priorities Survey, the foundation reported that Utahns ranked water supply and water quality seventh among voters’ top 10 issues and concerns for the 2008 election. The same survey in 2004, amid a drought, found that water issues ranked third.
For its research brief this week on water, the group used information and data from agencies that included the Western Regional Climate Center, Utah Division of Water Resources and Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Utah Division of Water Resources assistant director Todd Adams said he agreed with the foundation’s findings.
“We’re in an arid state — we have wet periods and we have dry periods,” Adams said. “That’s what we have reservoirs and storage for, to help us get through the dry periods. We believe that conservation needs to be a long-term ethic, and we need to do our part to conserve.”
Read full article
Source: Desert News
For more information about water conservation, visit our LEARN section
Beyond Drought: Florida’s Not So Wet After All
September 16, 2008 by Editor
Filed under The Southeast
What with all thehurricanes and tropical storms playing chicken with our long, skinny peninsula recently – making the normally wet Florida summer feel even soggier – it’s a bit difficult to remember that we were in the grip of a drought not all that long ago.
What a difference a few months make. Lake Okeechobee is filled practically to the brim. Standing water everywhere is breeding a plague of mosquitoes up and down the state. Rivers are running high and the creeks have risen.
All of which makes this seem like an especially untimely time to talk about water shortages. Still, come Sept. 25, 125 delegates from around the state will converge in Orlando for a two-day Water Congress, sponsored by the state-appointed Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida. Basically, it’s the commission’s job to look ahead, 10 years, 25 years and even 50 years into Florida’s future and try to anticipate trends, challenges and problems that lie ahead.
And never mind the fact that Florida’s water cup seems to be running over right now. What we’re learning is that it isn’t just periodic drought that threatens the state’s water security. It’s rampant population growth, poorly planned development, unsustainable pumping and irrigation practices and much more.
The St. Johns River Water Management District isn’t considering plans to pipe water south from the Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers because things have been a little dry lately. The notion of tapping surface waters has arisen because poorly planned development is causing the aquifers to drop.
Read full article
Source: The Legder
For more information about water conservation, visit our LEARN section
Drought forces farms to absorb higher fuel costs
September 8, 2008 by admin
Filed under The Northeast
NEW JERSEY-Months of drought at southern New Jersey farms have required more intense irrigation that preserved crops but inflated fuel bills in an expensive year for diesel.
A “weather and crop bulletin” from the federal Agriculture Department showed southern New Jersey sites received, from March through August, as little as 70 percent of the average rainfall. The report warned sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and squash are among the crops affected by the resulting heat stress.
Fruits and vegetables detach prematurely if temperatures are high enough, no matter what a farmer does, but Cumberland County farmer Tom Sheppard said the heat didn’t reach that point this year.
It’s a measure of farmers’ complex relationship with droughts that the weekend soaking from Tropical Storm Hanna wasn’t eagerly anticipated. Flooding can be a greater concern than wilting.
Read full article
Source: Press Of Atlantic City
For more information on water conservation, visit our LEARN section
Agencies get aggressive in efforts to curb water waste
September 8, 2008 by admin
Filed under The Southwest
Since November, Bill Stephens and his fellow water cops have issued more than 450 warnings and tickets to water wasters in Riverside County. They’ve targeted commercial, industrial and institutional customers in the Eastern Municipal Water District from Moreno Valley to Temecula.
This month, Stephens started to cite residents for excessively using water. After two warnings, homeowners will be fined $100 or more.
“You see a lot of waste. You just see it everywhere,” Stephens said.
He mainly writes citations when water is streaming off landscaped areas or sprinklers are spraying onto pavement.
Water cops are the way Eastern, California’s fifth-largest water district, is emphasizing the statewide drought. There are few equivalent programs in San Diego County, where officials are relying almost entirely on voluntary conservation despite some calls for mandates.
One exception is the Padre Dam Municipal Water District in Santee, whose employees recently were deputized to report water misuse, including irrigating between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Violators are sent a warning, and repeat problems can result in fines of $75 or more.
“It’s time to get serious,” said Mike Uhrhammer, spokesman for the Padre Dam district.
Read full article
Source: The Union Tribune
For more information on water conservation, visit our LEARN section
Tennessee: Drought causes multiple economic problems
September 4, 2008 by admin
Filed under The Southeast
The severe drought that has been experienced in Tennessee during the past several months has created a snowball effect on the economy and triggering a rise in power costs. (See related story in today’s edition.)
Tennessee Valley Authority receives its data from 317 rain gauges located throughout the states covered by the power supplier
The most recent data from TVA, dated Aug. 14, 2008, indicated the entire Valley has had 25.32 inches of rainfall since Jan 1, 2008. This figure is 75 percent of the normal amount.
The definition of a drought is “a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems.”
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the beginning of a drought is difficult to determine. Several weeks, months or even years may pass before anyone realizes a drought is occurring. Dry periods can last for 10 years or more.
During the 1930s, most of the United States was much drier than normal. In California, the drought extended from 1928 to 1937. In Missouri, the drought lasted from 1930 to 1941. That extended dry period produced the “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s when dust storms destroyed crops and farms.
A period of below-normal rainfall does not necessarily cause drought conditions. Some rain returns to the air as water vapor when water evaporates from water surfaces and from moist soil.
Conservation is the key to having enough water to ensure everyone has enough of the lifesaving liquid to maintain the bare necessities.
Source: Sparta News
For more information on water conservation, visit our LEARN section
About 2,000 people displaced by drought in southern Yemen
September 4, 2008 by admin
Filed under World's Water
(IRIN) – Hundreds of families (totalling about 2,000 people) in the southern governorate of Abyan have begun to leave their homes due to severe drought in their mountain villages, a senior official has said.
Sirar District, a mountainous area in Abyan, has been particularly badly affected since May.
Al-Khader Mohammed Saleh, director-general of Sirar District, told IRIN that over 300 families had left their villages over the past week as a result of the drought.
“People could not stand the water shortages and so they decided to leave their homes. More and more people are leaving their villages for the same reason. The number of displaced is doubling,” he said.
He said the displaced families had moved to areas like al-Huson and Jaar in the same governorate.
“A lot of them are living in tents. Some have rented houses. They are facing very difficult conditions,” he said.
According to the official, Sirar villages are arid, barren and mountainous. Any rain that does fall quickly runs off down the steep valley sides, as there are no dams in the area to harvest rainwater.
“As such, the rains are of no use when they fall in the area. Springs and water wells have gone dry,” he said.
Read full article
Source: Yemen Times
For more information on water conservation, visit our LEARN section
