A Sample of Drought Impacts from Summer 2007

This collection of impacts, drawn from the Drought Impact Reporter (droughtreporter.unl.edu), shows the variety of ways that drought affected agriculture, people, animals and the environment in summer 2007. The National Drought Mitigation Center is developing the Drought Impact Reporter with sponsorship from the Risk Management Agency and from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Agriculture

• Week of May 28, 2007, Tennessee. Livestock producers sold cattle early, fearing continued drought would result in lack of pasture and water. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture reported that two to three times more cattle were sold this week than in the same week in 2006. Sales occasionally lasted until the small hours of the morning.
• June 4, 2007, Alabama. Statewide, 27,100 cattle were sold that week in Alabama, up 63% from the previous year when 16,668 cattle were sold. An auction manager in Russellville stated that at least three entire herds were sold at a sale. Producers were selling because pastures were dry and hay was too expensive.
• June 21, 2007, Fayette County, Alabama. A farmer said that only 250 acres out of his 800 acres of cotton had grown. He wanted to plant 400 acres of peanuts, but stopped at 275 acres because nearly half of the planted acres didn’t grow, due to the lack of moisture.
• Late June, 2007, Alabama. Many farmers concluded that dryland farming was futile for the 2007 growing season in Alabama.
• July 12, 2007, Johnston County, North Carolina. A farmer reported that his hay production was down by 50%. Since his pastures were dry, he resorted to feeding his cattle hay. Difficult choices awaited the farmer concerning purchasing hay and selling cattle.
• Aug. 29, 2007, North Carolina. Governor Easley temporarily lifted restrictions on size and weight of vehicles carrying hay or water to permit more efficient transportation for farmers in need of supplies for their livestock.
• Sept 13, 2007, Lake Okeechobee, Florida. Polluted storm water will be allowed to flow back into Lake Okeechobee to increase the amount of water in the lake for irrigation purposes. A month previously, the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board voted against actively pumping water back into Lake Okeechobee. Some farmers who rely on lake water for irrigation are wondering whether or not to plant their crops since there clearly is not sufficient water in the lake for irrigation in the coming months.
• Sept. 19, 2007, Tennessee. The University of Tennessee’s Agriculture Extension Office said that roughly 10% of Tennessee’s farmers were being forced out of farming after this year of hardships, including drought and the late freeze this spring.

Water Supply
Many parts of the southeastern U.S. and California restricted water use as drought diminished water supplies. In California, many water districts requested that customers reduce their water consumption after a winter when many areas received less than 40% of the average snowfall. For example:

• Mid-June, 2007. The Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) told its customers to reduce water use by 15%. The SCWA was the first water supplier to begin mandatory rationing in California this year and serves Santa Rosa, Petaluma, and the Marin Water District, among others, affecting 750,000 customers.
• July 31, 2007. The Fresno Irrigation District stopped water deliveries on July 31. Normally water is delivered from March 1 through the end of August, but this year there was only enough water to provide deliveries from May 1 through July 31.
• Sept 10, 2007, North Carolina. Governor Easley of North Carolina ordered increasingly stringent water restrictions for the state during the summer. In September, he asked all water systems to implement voluntary water restrictions. Many water systems already had mandatory or voluntary restrictions in effect.
• Sept. 13, 2007. Water restrictions became more stringent in Long Beach as the city declared a water emergency, facing the prospects of continuing drought and limited water deliveries from Northern California. Officials monitor water bills to discover those who use excessive amounts. A telephone hotline and email system were being set up for residents to report neighbors who disobey the new water restrictions.

Hydropower

• January – June 16, 2007, Tennessee. The Tennessee Valley Authority produced about half of the energy it had anticipated, due to low water levels at its 29 hydroelectric dams. TVA lost roughly $200 million since October 2006, the beginning of their fiscal year. The loss of hydropower generation has resulted in higher costs for consumers.
• Sept. 13, 2007, North Carolina. Low water levels in North Carolina’s rivers reduced hydroelectric generating capacity. Progress Energy reported production was down almost 30% at the company’s three hydroelectric plants in North Carolina. Duke Energy reported production 45% below the same time last year at its 18 plants.

Business and Industry

• June 12, 2007, Moore County, Tennessee. Cave Spring, which supplies water to the Jack Daniels distillery, flowed at a rate of one-third to one-half of its usual rate, according to the distillery plant manager. Water conservation at the distillery has become paramount because one of the ingredients in the famous whiskey is the iron-free water that comes from the spring.
• Sept 17, 2007, Alabama. The Alabama Power Company said it would attempt to keep river flows on the Alabama River above 20% so dredging operations could continue. The river has been so low that barge traffic had not moved on the river between Selma and Mobile since March.

Community

• Sept 4, 2007, Cherokee County, South Carolina. The majority of wells dried up in Rock Springs, prompting two Baptist churches to delay eight baptisms until water supplies are more abundant. Members of the Rock Springs Baptist Church are praying for rain.

Wildlife Habitat

• July 24, 2007, Maryland. Blue crabs were less abundant this summer in parts of the Chesapeake Bay because the salinity of the bay changed, due to drought. The warmer, saltier water led the crabs to move north to more hospitable areas. The scarcity pushed the price of blue crabs to $120 per bushel, which was 50% higher than last year.

• September, 2007. The drought has reduced the amount of berries and water available for bears and other wildlife. This has led to greater numbers of animals encroaching into residential areas and coming into contact with people in Nevada, California, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Idaho.

           
Wildfire

• May 28, 2007, Florida. Dry vegetation on the lakebed of Lake Okeechobee began burning. The Frog Light Fire, as it was termed, burned in the lakebed near Buckhead Ridge and consumed more than 18,000 acres.
• May 29, 2007, Georgia. The Okefenokee Swamp burned near the Georgia-Florida border and blackened more than half of the 438,000 acre wildlife refuge. The swamp is very dry. Normally it is about waist-deep with water.
• Late June, 2007, Reno, Nevada.  A golfer reportedly started a fire by hitting a golf ball with his club near Reno. Drought has dramatically increased the fire danger in the region.
• July 4, 2007, Santa Barbara County, California. The Zaca Fire began near Zaca Lake when sparks from a metal grinder fell on dry vegetation. The fire consumed more than 240,000 acres and cost over $118 million to fight. Officials say the continued dry weather is making the fire difficult to fight.
• July 6, 2007, Utah. The Milford Flat fire began from a lightning strike and consumed 363,000 acres in southwestern Utah, easily making it the largest wildfire in Utah history. Many ranchers are struggling to find new areas to graze their cattle because much of the land burned in the fire was summer range.
• July 16, 2007, Idaho, Nevada. The Murphy Complex fire burned over 600,000 acres across Nevada and Idaho. The fire began from a lightning strike on July 16 and was contained Aug. 2. The Bureau of Land Management estimated that the containment cost of the fire was about $9.5 million.

Observations from a prime vantage point:

A dedicated and extremely efficient employee of the National Drought Mitigation Center spends the better part of her working days during the summer sifting through media reports on drought and extracting impact information. She has observed patterns that raise interesting questions for further research:

1. It is interesting to note differences in the frequency of drought reports in different parts of the country. The southeastern part of the country reports frequently on a wide range of drought impacts. Many media reports come from Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and Kentucky, discussing water restrictions, crop growth and yield, fireworks bans, and wildfire. The western part of the US, the southwest particularly, addresses drought issues less frequently. Perhaps it is the arid climate of the southwestern US that makes drought seem unremarkable, unless conditions are truly severe. Nevada, California, and Arizona are in drought, but, given their size, few media reports come from those areas, compared to the southeastern part of the country. Despite the fact that it is highly urban, California reports are mainly about agricultural impacts, such as livestock, with dry pastures, wildfires, and water restrictions.

2. It is clear that water managers at any level are reluctant to impose water restrictions, whether voluntary or mandatory, unless the situation is urgent. Repeatedly, cities and counties suggest voluntary water restrictions as dry conditions affect water supplies, only to implement mandatory water restrictions a week or two later. This suggests that water managers wait too long to request voluntary restrictions to avoid inconveniencing their citizens or raising concerns, in hopes that rain will fall and rescue them from falling reservoir levels. Another possibility is that media attention to voluntary restrictions leads to discussion or a political climate that makes mandatory restrictions an easier step to take.

Back to DroughtScape Fall 2007