SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 28, 2009
Droughts Ravaging California, Texas
Schwarzenegger Declares State Of Emergency As Agriculture Is Hard-Hit; Parts Of Texas Are Driest In U.S.
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Droughts have continued to dog farmers and ranchers in the Texas Hill Country. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
"There's really nothing to plant on," Miller said. "We need 8 to 10 inches to fill the soil profile up."
Miller said he is reminded of the 1998 drought, when a dry winter and spring finally gave way to a wet June.
"It rained a lot but all the crops were already lost," he said.
It won't be just agriculture impacted by continued dry conditions, especially if the drought persists into spring months when homeowners and others around the state begin watering lawns and gardens.
Of the 109 lakes the Texas Water Development Board monitors, 28 were at least 90 percent full, according to the agency's most recent monthly report. That compares with 42 in early September and 83 in late May. Summertime temperatures contribute to evaporation.
The storage capacity of Texas lakes dipped slightly to 80 percent since the late December report. One horror spot is O.C. Fisher Reservoir west of San Angelo, which the report states is "effectively empty."
"I wish we had some rain," said Barney Austin, director of the board's surface water resources. "You fly across the state and it's all brown, not green."
Austin expects the situation to grow even more dire as Texans begin tending to their landscapes.
"If we don't get any rain between now and when it starts getting hot we're going to be in a lot more trouble," he said.
Drought also means a heightened threat of wildfires. As of Thursday burns bans were in place in 200 of the state's 254 counties. Historically, the second week of March is the worst for wildfires.
More than 900,000 acres burned as wildfires swept across the Panhandle during one 5-day span in mid-March 2006. Twelve people, including a firefighter, and thousands of livestock perished.
"This year the grass fuel is really a mosaic because a lot of the state didn't get adequate spring rains" in 2008, said Mark Standford, chief of fire operations for the Texas Forest Service. "It's extremely dry."
Since Jan. 1, about 3,400 wildfires have been reported across the state, scorching nearly 105,000 acres. No serious injuries have been reported but 67 homes and 245 other structures were reported destroyed through Wednesday.
The only places not experiencing any drought on this week's drought map are all or parts of about 15 counties in northern far East Texas, including Bowie, Red River, Lamar, Titus, Hopkins, Franklin, Harrison, Cass, Upshur, Marion, Smith, Gregg, Morris, Rains and Wood counties.
Shudde, the rancher, can for now only wish that list included Uvalde County, where his land is.
"Send me a big ol' towel," he said jokingly. "We'll cry."
In California, Situation Is "Extremely Dire"
Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought in June but stopped short of calling a state of emergency. His 2008 executive order directed the state Department of Water Resources to speed water transfers to areas with the worst shortages and help local water districts with conservation efforts.
Over the last few weeks, storms have helped bring the seasons' rain totals to 87 percent of average, but the Sierra snowpack remains at 78 percent of normal for this time of year. State hydrologists say the snowpack must reach between 120 to 130 percent of normal to make up for the two previous dry winters and replenish California's key reservoirs.
Court decisions intended to protect threatened fish species also have forced a significant cutback in pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, the heart of the state's delivery system.
The governor, farmers and lawmakers have argued for years that California must upgrade its decades-old water supply and delivery system and build new reservoirs.
"The situation is extremely dire," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the
The state delivers water to more than 25 million Californians and more than 750,000 acres of farmland.
Schwarzenegger's order leaves the door open for more severe restrictions later. Additional measures can include mandatory water rationing and water reductions if there is no improvement in water reserves and residents fail to conserve on their own.
At least 25 water agencies throughout the state already have imposed mandatory restrictions, while 66 others have voluntary measures in place.
The state prefers such local efforts so it does not have to call for statewide rationing, Snow said.
The federal government on Thursday created a drought task force to provide farmers technical assistance in managing existing water supplies. Farmers also could be eligible for federally-backed emergency loans.
Almond farmer Shawn Coburn of Mendota said the emergency declaration comes too late for many growers who already are halfway through the season. Some farmers didn't bring in bees to pollinate, while others sprayed their orchards with chemicals that keep nuts from forming.
"It's too late," he said. "It's going to sound horrible coming from a farmer because you never turn down help, but come on, this thing is over with."
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- WELCOME TO "DAY AFTER TOMMORROW" ENJOY YOUR STAY. lol
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- And NO, nobody has a sensible reason whatsoever to give that justifies giving the government a TON of money....because they can't do a thing about climactic weather cycles...
Posted by ChgUBINOT at 4:21 PM : Feb 28, 2009
If you think that the impact of current human industrial society isn't dramatically and artificially influencing Earth's climate (for the worse) then you're a simple nut and have credible voice with which to speak.
Posted by cs4466 at 2:29 AM : Mar 1, 2009
You missed the really funny part of Rowdy's rant: That we "GIVE" the government a ton of money. She must have had too much Texas peeee to drink. We GIVE the government NOTHING. The Government WANTS...THEY TAKE.....
LOL - Reply to this comment
- I agree with you, corey2444! The covenants that G_d made with Abraham are still in effect. And G_d will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel. Land for peace will never work... until the Prince of Peace returns on Mt. of Olives. US foreign policy is on very thin ice! Droughts are only ONE type of plague. USA must either ger right, or get ready for more!
Posted by crmahan at 12:00 PM : Feb 28, 2009
..And when God punishes Israel ? (Which He does, a lot ) The fact is, scripture also says for Gentiles or the "grafted fruit on the vine to be careful what they do--the bible speaks of God as the vineyard husbanman and states that since he must preiodically "prune" his real fruit (meaning punish and at times kill some of the children of Abraham) "how much more will he do to those who are merely grafted?
Keep on thinking when Israel is wrong that God just sucks it up--you will be in for a surprise. Wrong is wrong and God is not a respector of persons. When Israel is wrong (and sometimes they are) God smites them--he will do the same or worse to any sidekick of Israel. - Reply to this comment
- 'AND LET THIS BE A SIGN UNTO YOU: IN THE LAST DAYS, YOU CANNOT TELL THE SEASONS FROM THE SEASONS" (bible scripture) YEP.
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- Wow--first we start a bunch of wars--then comes diseases (like SARS and flesh eating bacteria and disease resistant STDs and menningitis) then comes the drought for CA so no crops...last year the flooding in the midwest--so less crops --maybe flooding this year....Then there were the aphids, lady beetles and the missing bees and now bats are dropping...
Looks like America is experiencing the 7 plagues of Egypt and then some..... Wonder whatever could we have done wrong.....wonder if maybe killing hundreds of thousands based on lies released bad karma...or maybe God got tired of us acting ugly.....or maybe the worm just turns....... - Reply to this comment
- Within the LIFETIME of many farmers working the soil in California's Central Valley, conditions have turned dramatically worse. Sorry, but that is just NOT enough time for natural forces to turn the climate. (1930s DustBowl was due to poor tillage methods). Natural forces take many centuries and even millenia to take effect (other than volcano's and meteor hits). Clearly, something ELSE is going on here, and that is Global Warming.
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- It looks like the DUST BOWL is returning. Not only is the economy tanking and unemployment increasing, the DROUGHT continues to grow. Where will they go? Will it be as bad as the 1930's?Is this a product of global warming or just the natural CYCLE of things to come?
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- Antarctic sea ice acts like a d@m, holding back land-based glacial ice from falling into the ocean. That d@m is breaking.
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- Almost all of the ice they say is melting is already in the water you can prove this by dropping an ice cube in a glass of water that ice will act the exact same way Polar Ice does..
Posted by dmw1167
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Your credibility on this subject is about as wet as your glass of ice water, since much of the ice already melting at unprecedented levels is on land like Greenland and Antarctica!
Study: Antarctic Glaciers Melting Swiftly
Warming Across Continent Could Lead To Unprecedented Rise In Sea Levels, Scientists Say
A report by thousands of scientists for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year concluded that the western part of the continent is warming up, not just the Antarctic Peninsula.
Satellite data and automated weather stations indicate that "the warming we see in the peninsula also extends all the way down to what is called west Antarctica," he told The Associated Press. "That's unusual and unexpected."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/25/tech/main4827345.shtml?tag=main_home_storiesBySection - Reply to this comment
- have credible voice <-- woop this should read "*no* credible voice"
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Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
