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Matt Bernhardt for The New York Times |
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| Extremely
dry conditions and dozens of fires have
plagued much of New Mexico in the past
several weeks. Near the town of Magdalena,
the main source of water for cattle was a
puddle at the end of a highway culvert. |
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Lane Hickenbottom for The New York Times |
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Dave Barry, a
farmer-rancher in Valparaiso, Neb., knows
trouble when he sees it, and this season,
it is a dry pond, normally a good six feet
deep, that used to provide water for his
cattle. He has had to move his cows.
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Drought Bakes Much of South, Periling
Crops
By JO THOMAS
June 16, 2000
NYTimes.com
VALPARAISO, Neb., June 15 --
The pond on Dave Barry's farm, once six feet
deep, has dried to a mud puddle, and the
purple flowers on the surrounding alfalfa are
an ominous sign.
The alfalfa "should
reach two feet before it blooms, but it's only
four inches," Mr. Barry said today as a
hot, dry wind ruffled the stumpy plants.
"It's fit for a lawn
mower. It's done."
Here in eastern Nebraska, in
a swath of the Gulf Coast from Florida to New
Orleans, in the hills of West Texas and in
Georgia and Alabama, pockets of extraordinary
drought, by some measures the worst in a
century, are baking farms and homes.
In Florida, alligators are
roaming out of lakes and ponds that have all
but disappeared. In southeast Louisiana, rice
crops and drinking wells are being ruined by
salt water that has seeped into the parched
aquifer. In West Texas, ranchers are selling
off goats and sheep as the grasslands dry up.
In Georgia, the red soil is baked hard as
concrete.
Here and there this week,
the first rain in months has fallen. But far
more will be needed and the damage is already
done for many farmers.
John Saichuk, a rice
specialist in Louisiana State University's
Cooperative Extension Service, says salt water
infiltrating the depleted aquifer is killing
crops and could ruin the soil and next year's
crop.
In Concho County, Tex.,
Lance Rasch, the county extension agent, said
most ranchers had liquidated their herds, with
only 25 percent of the livestock left compared
with four years ago. Some large ranches have
no livestock, he said.
But not just farmers are
feeling the effects.
In the lush suburban
neighborhoods of Tampa, Fla., and Atlanta,
"water police" roam, enforcing
restrictions on watering lawns.
Parched communities in
northern Florida have become tinderboxes, with
almost daily brush fires in several counties.
The smoke from one brush fire that raged just
outside Orlando this month set off fire alarms
in a downtown hotel.
Despite the severity in some
areas, the effects are not as widespread as in
some past droughts.
"This is not a drought
of national geography," Agriculture
Secretary Dan Glickman said.
Mr. Glickman said the
drought had not affected prices and production
of major crops like wheat, corn and soybeans
or pushed up food prices, as a nationwide
drought did in 1988. "I don't believe
we're going to have that."
Nevertheless, where the
drought has hit, it has hit uncommonly hard.
Mr. Glickman said there was little precedent
for the weather's extreme volatility in recent
years, with severe dry spells and then
torrential rain and floods. "That's
what's unusual -- those intense weather
patterns," he said.
Keith Collins, chief
economist at the United States Department of
Agriculture in Washington, saw serious effects
on production of peanuts and cotton. In
Alabama, which produces 10 percent of the
nation's peanuts, growing conditions for 83
percent of the crop are poor, indicating
sharply reduced harvests.
In Georgia, source of half
the nation's peanuts, 28 percent of the crop
has been caught in such conditions. In Texas,
source of a third of the nation's cotton
production, the department says 21 percent of
the current crop has been struck.
Farmers in parched areas who
rely on irrigation have been hit doubly hard,
by the drought and the rising cost of oil to
drive the irrigation systems. Senator Bob
Kerrey, Democrat of Nebraska, said that in the
state's southwestern corner, the cost of
irrigating wheat has jumped from $100 an acre
to $200.
On Wednesday Gov. Mike
Johanns of Nebraska declared a state of
emergency and sought aid for the most stricken
counties.
Allen Dutcher, the state
climatologist, says the drought began in the
southeastern corner of the state in the middle
of July last year.
"It wasn't really until
the month of September that we saw everyone in
the state go dry," Mr. Dutcher said.
"It was eight weeks
before anyone got precipitation at all.
Then it was dry again until
February."
Nebraska wheat farmers
depend on fall and spring rains to build up
moisture in the soil.
With no rain, farmers found
themselves needing 25 inches of rain in a
growing season that typically provides 18.
"The pastures didn't
respond this spring," Mr. Dutcher said.
"We didn't have the moisture for growth
when it was cool, and the temperature
skyrocketed in May.
We had 100 degree
readings."
"The next thing that
went down was the wheat crop," he said.
"Harvesting will begin this week, but our
yields in a lot of places will be 50 percent
or less.
In the southeast, a lot of
people are cutting the wheat for grazing, as
supplemental cattle feed."
On Wednesday, the governor
said he would allow farmers in 46 counties to
harvest grass along state and federal roads to
feed their animals.
"With the lack of
moisture and the hot, dry winds, there's a lot
of fear," said Merlyn Carlson, Nebraska's
director of agriculture.
"As streams decline, we
may have to restrict irrigation."
Nebraska has 13 million
acres in corn, sorghum and soy beans.
And 55 percent to 60 percent
of it is irrigated.
"Center-pivot
irrigation has to run 24 hours a day,"
Mr. Dutcher said. "There's no moisture in
the soil to rely on.
Irrigators will not be able
to keep up with crop water demands. "
Mr. Barry, who farms 1,500
acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa, was
operating water pumps on his farm today, but
only for 60 acres.
"The price of fuel
makes watering corn that sells for $1.60 a
bushel a waste of time," he said.
"Without rain, we'll have to water for 60
days, and we'll lose $1 a bushel."
He has already moved his 160
cows, with their calves, to pastures where it
rains, 280 miles away, at a cost of $2 a mile.
As he drove away from his
rock-hard alfalfa fields, which yielded only a
fourth of their usual harvest this spring, he
passed Conservation Reserve Program pastures,
held in reserve for soil conservation and
wildlife.
Today the federal government
released them for use by farmers who want to
rent them for grazing.
"It's too late for
us," Mr. Barry said. "I've moved my
cattle. People south of Lincoln sold theirs
two weeks ago."
Roadside haying, where
farmers can pay to harvest hay along state and
federal roads, will begin next Monday and
"could help some," he said.
"But there's bottles and cans and
broke-off tree stumps.
You ruin as much equipment
as you make in hay."
Unless rain falls soon,
southern Alabama could face the driest first
half of a year in this century.
Already, Alabama has been
scorched by the worst drought since the 1950's
with rainfall a foot below normal in some
areas this year and two feet below over two
years.
Gov. Donald Siegelman has
declared a state of emergency in 19 of
Alabama's 67 counties.
Faye and Joe Williams raise
corn, cotton, peanuts, grain sorghum for their
cattle on 1,000 acres in Newton, in the heart
of the drought in southeast Alabama.
In a normal year, the
5-foot, 3-inch tall Mrs. Williams could hide
in her corn stalks. This year, she noted,
"It's up to my waist." She added:
"We didn't plant as much cotton as
anticipated. We got all of our peanuts planted
but about a third came up." She said the
farm had two streams that had gone dry.
"Farming has got way
out of balance too," she said.
"Everything we have to buy is up, up, up
but the prices are at a standstill
level."
On his farm near Montezuma,
Ga., Lynmore James cannot graze his cattle on
barren pastures, and the earth is baked hard.
"You can't dig a
hole" Mr. James said. "You can't get
anything to scratch the surface."
"We could get the
blues, but we try to keep in good
spirits," he added. "We go to church
and we meet and talk about our problems."
But there are signs of hope.
Much needed rain fell today
in southern Alabama and the Florida Panhandle,
but unless the thunderstorms continue for days
or even weeks the rainfall will not be enough.
On June 7, the first real
rain in months fell on Tampa, and people
rushed outside to watch and to celebrate.
Thunderstorms are forecast.
"I would think once the
rainy season has begun, we might catch up
slowly," said a cautious Eric Oglesby, a
hydrologist for the National Weather Service
at Ruskin, Fla.
In east Nebraska rain is
spotty.
It may rain an inch in
Lincoln, as it did this week, and only a few
drops will fall on Mr. Barry's farm.
"It's going to take a
miracle to make a corn crop," he said.
"Ten inches have to go
into the ground in the next ten days.
An inch isn't going to do us
any good."
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