U.S. EXPERIENCING DROUGHT FOR THE AGES
By Patrick O'Driscoll
USA TODAY
June 8, 2007

Drought, a fixture in much of the West for nearly a decade, now covers more
than one-third of the continental USA. And it's spreading.

As summer starts, half the nation is either abnormally dry or in outright
drought from prolonged lack of rain that could lead to water shortages,
according to the U.S. Drought Monitor
< http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/monitor.html>, a weekly index of conditions.
Welcome rainfall last weekend from Tropical Storm Barry brought short-term
relief to parts of the fire-scorched Southeast. But up to 50 inches of rain
is needed to end the drought there, and this is the driest spring in the
Southeast since record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National
Climatic Data Center.

California and Nevada just recorded their driest June-to-May period since
1924, and a lack of rain in the West could make this an especially risky
summer for wildfires.

Coast to coast, the drought's effects are as varied as the landscapes:

- In central California, ranchers are selling cattle or trucking them out of
state as grazing grass dries up. In Southern California's Antelope Valley,
rainfall at just 15% of normal erased the spring bloom of California
poppies.

- In South Florida, Lake Okeechobee, America's second-largest body of fresh
water, fell last week to a record low -- an average 8.89 feet above sea
level. So much lake bed is dry that 12,000 acres of it caught fire last
month. Saltwater intrusion threatens to contaminate municipal wells for
Atlantic coastal towns as fresh groundwater levels drop.

- In Alabama, shallow ponds on commercial catfish farms are dwindling, and
more than half the corn and wheat crops are in poor condition.

Dry episodes have become so persistent in the West that some scientists and
water managers say drought is the "new normal" there. Reinforcing that
notion are global-warming projections warning of more and deeper dry spells
in the Southwest, although a report in last week's Science magazine
challenges the climate models and suggests there will be more rainfall
worldwide later this century.

"It seems extremely likely that drought will become more the norm" for the
West, says Kathy Jacobs of the Arizona Water Institute, a research
partnership of the state's three universities. "Droughts will continue to
come and go, but higher temperatures are going to produce more water
stress." That's because warmer temperatures in the Southwest boosts demands
for water and cause more to evaporate from lakes and reservoirs.

"The only good news about drought is it forces us to pay attention to water
management," says Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute, a think tank in
Oakland that stresses efficient water use.

This drought has been particularly harsh in three regions: the Southwest,
the Southeast and northern Minnesota.

Severe dryness across California and Arizona has spread into 11 other
Western states. On the Colorado River, the water supply for 30 million
people in seven states and Mexico, the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs
are only half full and unlikely to recover for years. In Los Angeles County,
on track for a record dry year with 21% of normal rain downtown since last
summer, fire officials are threatening to cancel Fourth of July fireworks if
conditions worsen. On Wednesday, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
urged residents to voluntarily cut water use 10%, the city's first such call
since the 1990s.

In Minnesota, which is in its worst drought since 1976, the situation is
improving slowly, although a wildfire last month burned dozens of houses and
115 square miles in the northeastern part of the state.

The Southeast, unaccustomed to prolonged dry spells, may be suffering the
most. In eight states from Mississippi to the Carolinas and down through
Florida, lakes are shrinking, crops are withering, well levels are falling
and there are new limits on water use. "We need 40-50 inches of rainfall to
get out of the drought," says Carol Ann Wehle of the South Florida Water
Management District.

Despite a recent storm, water hasn't flowed in Florida's Kissimmee River,
which feeds Lake Okeechobee, in 212 days. The district has imposed its
strictest water-use limits ever in 13 counties, cutting home watering to
once a week and commercial use by 45%.

The drought also has provided an occasional benefit: Okeechobee's record low
level allowed crews to clean out decades of muck and debris.

And some stricken areas are recovering. Texas and Oklahoma, charred by
wildfires in the dry winter of 2005-06, are drought-free.

Even in California, where winter snowpack in the Sierra Nevada range was
only 27% of normal this year, plentiful runoff from last year's snows filled
many reservoirs, so shortages are unlikely this year. But another dry winter
would tax supplies.

Gleick says water managers are not reacting forcefully enough to the
drought: "The time to tell people that we're in the middle of a drought and
to institute strong conservation programs is today, not a year from now."
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is doing that. Last
month, it began a "Let's Save" radio campaign.

After nearly a decade of drought in parts of the West, the nation's
fastest-growing region wrestles with rising water demands and declining
supply.

Donald Wilhite of the National Drought Mitigation Center says the Southwest
and Southeast are "becoming gradually more vulnerable to drought" because
the rising population will need more water. "We think of water as an
unlimited resource," he says. "But what happens when you turn on the tap and
it's not there?"

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