Drought Sears Crops in South; Drinking Water in Peril

On his 100-acre tomato farm just south of Birmingham, Ala., Horace Hicks walked the furrowed fields and kicked at the parched earth, sending up clouds of yellow dust.

“That’s what you call dry,” Hicks, 52, said dispiritedly. “I just irrigated it yesterday, and it’s like powder again. Even the weeds ain’t growing.”

That lament is being heard from farmers across the South this spring as drought sears the land, withering young plants, turning growing fields into dust bowls and drying up many farmers’ hopes of recovering from a devastating economic depression in agriculture.

‘Everybody Is Hurting’

In South Carolina, which has gone more than six weeks without any measurable precipitation, half the state’s 300,000-acre wheat crop may be lost. In Georgia, only 27% of the peanut crop has been planted because of dry soil; ordinarily, 60% would be in the ground by now. In Alabama, which Gov. George C. Wallace has declared a disaster area, crop and livestock losses are expected to total more than $100 million.

“Everybody is hurting,” said John Dorrill, executive director of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation. “But for some of our farmers, the hope of hanging on for another year is about gone.”

National Weather Service meteorologists call the drought, which stretches across the South from Virginia to Texas, the most severe in the region in more than half a century, and they see little relief ahead.

“Thunderstorms or a tropical storm system could balance the books,” said Rodger Getz, an agricultural meteorologist with the Southeast Agricultural Weather Service Center in Auburn, Ala. “But a big downpour once a month isn’t going to do it. What we really need is several days of nice slow rain.”

Forecasts Not Hopeful

Getz said there are prospects for some rain beginning this weekend as a cold front moves slowly eastward across the northern parts of Alabama and Georgia into Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas. But dry conditions are expected to return by Wednesday, he said.

The long term, 30- and 90-day extended forecasts by the National Weather Service call for near- or below-normal precipitation in much of the Southeast. May, June and July are ordinarily the dry season in the region.

Farmers are not the only ones hurt because abnormal high-pressure systems over the South have locked out the moisture that usually circulates from the Gulf of Mexico in late winter and early spring.

Communities from Orlando, Fla., to Atlanta and Birmingham, have been forced to ration water or adopt other conservation measures. Homeowners are watching their azalea bushes wilt, magnolia trees lose their leaves and lawns turn brown.

Lakes, reservoirs and wells have fallen to alarming levels. Lake Sidney Lanier, the 39,000-acre reservoir that supplies most of Atlanta’s drinking water, is seven feet below normal and dropping. The deficit has forced the shutdown of two recreational boating ramps there and threatened the closing of several others.

Lowest Rainfall Since 1896

Lake Purdy, the reservoir that provides a major portion of Birmingham’s water, is so low that officials fear it may be useless as a drinking water source by August. Birmingham recorded only six-tenths of an inch of rain in April, the lowest level for that month since 1896.

In Charlotte, N.C., which this year recorded its driest December-through-April period since 1878, the local government utility department has asked the City Council for power to impose mandatory water conservation rules that could penalize violators $30 to $100 a day.

“I’m dying for a good shower,” said Robert Ackerman, a suburban Charlotte physician. “It’s starting to remind me of when I lived in a remote village in Colombia during college.”

In Alabama and Tennessee, National Guard troops have had to haul in water to several small towns that ran out.

Hydroelectric Power Affected

Utility companies have also felt the impact. The Alabama Power Co., which normally gets 7% of its electricity from its 14 dams, shut down hydroelectric power generation last week.

At the Tennessee Valley Authority, low water flows have reduced hydroelectric power production by 75%. TVA spokesman Donald Bagwell said: “We need a good hard rain--for about two weeks!” The low water levels have also caused a buildup of algae, leaving TVA water murky and drinking water with an unpleasant taste and odor.

Firefighters are continuing to battle infernos on thousands of acres of tinder-dry forests in the South.

In North Carolina, flames shot 80 feet high as a forest fire in the eastern part of the state blackened 70,000 acres of coastal land near Hampstead and forced the evacuation of more than 5,000 residents, before being brought under control this week.

Fire Remains a Threat

No lives were lost and residential property damage was negligible, but Rebecca Richards, a spokeswoman for the state forestry service, said: “The fire’s still a threat. We’re playing a wait-and-see game.”

In Virginia, a fire started by a camp stove swept through a 4,300-acre section of the Shenandoah National Forest, the biggest blaze at the park since the 1930s.

Almost 900,000 acres of timberland across the South have been charred by fires since the beginning of the year, according to the National Park Service.