Drought Spells Trouble for Much of U.S.

It’s been a slow summer in this mountain hamlet that takes its name from the trees that surround town. The arts and crafts fair was canceled, along with the July 4 fireworks. The antique market was pushed back to October, as was this month’s Heritage Day celebration.

Attendance was low at the quilt show. Tables were empty at the Randall House restaurant. And the OK Corral had to shut down altogether, its trail rides scrapped during the height of the season.

In a place dependent upon summer tourism for economic survival, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Most of the nearby national forest was closed for two months. A giant wildfire that burned for weeks to the east turned away even more visitors.

Then, in July, the unthinkable: In much of Pine, the faucets ran dry -- forcing organizers to postpone the biggest functions of the year over fears that there wouldn’t be enough water.

“It’s kind of a sequence of events,” said Randall House owner Barbara Frazin-O’Connor, whose business is down 35%.

The sequence of events is linked to one disastrous source: the drought.

From quaint mountain towns to cattle ranches and even the downtown streets of big cities, a dry spell that for some states rivals the most severe on record is wreaking economic and environmental havoc on much of the nation.

More than one-third of the 48 contiguous U.S. states is now in severe to extreme drought, while more than half of the country is experiencing at least moderate drought conditions, experts say. The problem is most acute in the West, where every state but Washington is in some stage of drought.

Overall, the dry spell isn’t as prolonged or widespread as droughts of the 1930s and ‘50s. But the drought of 2002 may well go down in history as one of the most far-reaching in impact, thanks to growth spurts that have increased competition for what little water there is.

“We have more people and more development in areas that we weren’t in before. Whether it be golf courses or grass yards ... that use of water is straining a finite resource,” said Mark Svoboda, climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska.

“Maybe it doesn’t take a drought that’s historic to see the impacts we’re seeing now. They are indeed severe. We are more vulnerable.”

Ranchers are selling off herds. Fishing and hunting guides are losing clients. Homeowners face fines if they soak gardens on the wrong day.

Some residents have run out of water completely, their towns forced to haul it in for the most mundane of tasks -- taking a shower, flushing the toilet.

In the West, the drought turned a typical fire season treacherous, helping to spark more blazes that rapidly spread out of control.

National forests closed their gates over fears that a campfire would ignite browning trees and brush.

Even wildlife and insects are feeling the effects. Thousands of animals have flocked from forests to suburbs in search of food. Antelope fawns are dying. The Colorado state bird -- the lark bunting -- is almost nonexistent in its home state, driven out by dwindling food and water supplies.

In Nebraska, the opposite problem: a drought-induced infestation of grasshoppers and crickets is ravaging crops.

Throughout the country, losses are still being calculated. But in Nebraska, the total economic effect of the drought is at least $1.4 billion. In Colorado, farmers will lose an estimated $100 million on the winter wheat crop. In Arizona, officials predict $300 million in losses in the livestock industry alone.

“It hurts everybody,” said Arizona businessman John Williams, whose trail ride operation lost $30,000 when Coconino National Forest shut down this summer.

Drought occurs somewhere in the United States every year, according to the Drought Mitigation Center. What changes is how severe, widespread and prolonged those spells are. At the height of the eight-year Dust Bowl, 65% of the country was in severe to extreme drought. The annual average is 15%.

The current drought coincides with the transition in 1998 from an El Nino to a La Nina weather pattern. El Nino, characterized by warmer-than-usual seas, generally brings more precipitation to the southern tier of the country. La Nina produces the opposite effect -- cooler seas and dry conditions.

In some parts of the Southeast, where drought is ravaging towns from central Georgia through the middle of South and North Carolina and into central Virginia, rainfall is 60 inches below normal.

In the Southwest, it’s a similar story. Precipitation was 45% of normal through June in New Mexico, making this the eighth-driest year since 1895. Arizona received less than an inch of rain in the same period, compared with an average 4.6 inches.

The desert is so dry that cracks up to 6 feet wide have formed on parched land.

In Colorado, snowpacks were 60% of average this year. That meant less runoff into the two main storage reservoirs for the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water to seven Western states.

Lake Powell, on the Arizona-Utah line, stands at 63% of capacity, while Nevada’s Lake Mead is 67% full and could hit a 30-year low later this year.

Denver imposed mandatory watering restrictions for the first time since 1981, although in other cities, such as Phoenix, there are none.

“Basically, the country’s brown,” said fishing guide Larry Stiefel of Buena Vista, Colo., southwest of Denver.

Stiefel loses one of his watering holes this month when Denver water officials drain Antero Reservoir to fill a deeper storage site and reduce the risk of evaporation.

“It’s going to take a while to recover from all this.”

Forecasters hope that the summer rains bring some immediate relief, although the eastern hurricane season and western monsoons have yet to produce any major storms.

In the long term, experts are looking again to El Nino but aren’t sure whether one now developing will be strong enough to bust the drought.

In places like Pine, fingers are crossed that rain will return.

Melvin Van Vorst, head of the Pine-Strawberry Historical Society, hopes that the business community recoups some of its summer losses this fall when the town belatedly holds its big events. Even his organization lost one-third of its budget when it had to postpone the antique show.

But one look around at this town’s normally spectacular surroundings could shake his faith. Mountain vistas that should be carpeted in green are brown and barren.

Even the pines around Pine have withered.

“It’s always reminded me of the Great Smoky Mountains,” Van Vorst said. “When you look at the woods and the forest and the mountains, and you can see dirt.... This year, it looks like the desert it is.”