Drought down South

Drought in the north, but not like that!

 

It's not quite that bad here in Minnesota, but local lake levels have dropped a good 12-16 inches in the past two years.  I understand that even Lake Superior is down over a foot.  That's ALOT of water!  

 We've been called the "water capital of the world", but we sure can see the effects here with the watering restrictions in the metro areas.

 Al Gore is right, of course.  I just hope it's not too late. 

 Hopefully, I won't get the little violin for this comment. :)

 

 

 

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by: dr haber @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 19:46:09 PM CDT

Wastful practices abound

Even though NoVA has announced water restrictions I still see all of the Condo/Apartment buildings around here with green grass watering their lawns late at night.  Sad really.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson

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by: Daimeon @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 19:56:34 PM CDT

Restrictions? What restrictions

I haven't heard anything about restrictions, but I think our (Alexandria) water comes from the Potomac.  But it was a rough summer.  The one time we got rain in September my rosebushes exploded with blossoms.

 

My friends in the Ohio River Valley also complained about high temps and very little rain. 

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by: metalsguy @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 21:55:25 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I could've swore

I heard them say water restrictions on NBC.  If not then I'm talking out my ass and I'm sorry.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson

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by: Daimeon @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 13:36:29 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

May well be...

I rarely listen to local news.  I know they were worried over in Maryland.

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by: metalsguy @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 15:45:04 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Hooray for you and Kate, Pam!

I live in NH, and we have had a fairly good amount of rain until the past few weeks. Nonetheless, I never water my sizeable lawn, and never have in the past 23 years. Sometimes it's fairly green, and sometimes it's mostly brown. It's a mix of grass, weeds, and moss anyway. As I have become more of an environmental activist, I am more and more bothered by the fake-looking green lawns, knowing what they cost in water and petro-fertilizers.

    I do handwater the lawn... if I rinse a bunch of spinach or something in a bowl of water, I dump the water on the lawn afterward :) 

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by: CathyG @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 20:11:29 PM CDT

I've been turning my lawn into a garden.

There's literally tons of mulch and hardscaping.  Tons!  And lots of drought resistant plants.  It's beautiful and buzzes with bees and other critters.  And Ive planed indigenous trees and bushes too.

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by: Holly Capote @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 21:09:10 PM CDT

My heart was so free,

it roved like the bee, till Holly my passion requited!

I sipped every flower, I changed each hour...but here every power's united!

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by: Ross K. @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 11:28:56 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Dry here too

It actually rained here today (Louisville) for only the 2nd time in about 2 months.  Not that it did any good, the ground is so hard that most of the rain simply runs off into the street or ponds in one place.  Most of Kentucky is in a severe drought and water restrictions are in place in most places save for here.  We get our water from the Ohio River and as a result we've never had water restrictions here.  I guess there has been enough rain in the rivers watershed to keep it up to normal summer levels as it appears to be at about normal pool.  I guess we're pretty lucky in that respect, it's nice to have that big mile wide river running right thru town. 

"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?"

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by: kellyvision @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 21:17:16 PM CDT

People have been screaming about water waste for years,

  In many places through out the U.S. and few in charge have never done a thing about it.  When I lived in Flor-DUH, the warnings went in one ear of the politicians' ears and out the other. They just keep on allowing companies like Zephyrhills to keep pumping 80,000 gallons of water a day for big profits.

  Flor-DUH's biggest lake is going dry,

Grass grows on what was once the bottom of Florida's Lake Okeechobee, June 1, 2007, amid a drought.

"Florida's groundwater has been overallocated - not just in South Florida, but all over the state," says Cynthia Barnett, author of Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern United States. "In addition, we just haven't taken conservation as seriously as other parts of the country."

  And they just keep on watering the grass and the golf courses. With out a care of the future drinkable water supply.

 

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 21:25:04 PM CDT

No drought here

It's weird to hear that most of the country is in a drought when ours ended decisively this summer.  All of Texas got a ton of rain all summer long.  The lakes, which had been really low for several years, went from full to flooding in just a couple of weeks.  We have a built-in sprinkler system in our front yard (came with the house), but we basically didn't use it this year.  I planted low-water plants in the flower beds, and even our grass is still flourishing, though it hasn't rained for a while now.  I figure we'll need to mow one more time this year, then it can take care of itself til spring.

 I hope it doesn't come to actually running out of water for any community.  Too bad we can't share with them.

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by: Heidi @ Tue Oct 16, 2007 at 21:45:02 PM CDT

A Clear Punishment

This drought is affecting Alabama, Tennessee, and northern Georgia most seriously. Clearly, the drought is a punishment by God for these states' heedless acceptance of gay people and for the atheism that is so rampant in these states' populations.

It is time for some repentance on the part of these people, before they dry up and blow away with God's righteous wrath. 

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by: Jim @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 00:53:06 AM CDT

You want to see insulting wastes of water...

...try driving past the golf courses sometime.

When I was living in Tucson I was incensed most of all by the idiots who insisted on having large green lawns. In 120-degree summer heat. That they watered in the middle of the frickin' day.

Blogwhoring @ http://indigestible.nightwares.com/

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by: Warren @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 10:33:33 AM CDT

People Still don't get it

I'm right down the road from ya, Pam, in Raleigh, and I still see rampant waste in "small ways", which of course add up to big ways.

My own boss won't pee into a toilet that wasn't flushed. I don't mean solid waste (that IS nasty), but if someone else peed and didn't flush (possibly trying to save water due to the drought) he will flush BEFORE he pees in it! How dainty does a person have to be to only urinate into fresh clean water?!?!? 

Every morning at my gym, I see men shaving and brushing their teeth while the faucet is left running (full-blast, no less), gushing gallons of clean water right down the drain. Huh? Both of these are one-handed activities; use your free hand to turn the water on to rinse the razor and then back off. I estimate 5 gallons wasted each time someone shaves like this. And why in the name of God would anyone need the water running while brushing their teeth?

This isn't water waste per se, but an illustration of how much water could be put to use: when you have a soft drink from McDonald's or wherever and finish your drink, don't throw the cup away with ice in it, pour the ice out onto a plant or a tree! It's amazing how much water (ice) is thrown into garbage bags that could be used to give at least a tiny amount of relief to the poor thirsty plants (makes the load lighter for the garbage collectors, too!).

I've started the "Car wash" method of showering: Wet, soap, THEN rinse, as opposed to leaving the water on while soaping up (I feel like I am more efficient at soaping this way, besides). I started doing this in our last drought, in 2002, and it's very easy to get used to. And most people really do NOT need to shampoo their hair EVERY day--that costs extra water, especially if you use conditioner and whatnot. Heck, skip showering at all once in a while if you're just going to be hanging around the house all day on a weekend! Humans don't get that dirty in one day!

Bottom line is, there are dozens of very EASY ways we all could be conserving water, but I'm afraid that most of us have grown up in an ever-abundant world where we think everything we enjoy will always be there. If people hadn't been so wasteful all along, we wouldn't be able to see dry land at the bottoms of our lakes.

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by: kmpintj @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 11:40:13 AM CDT

Every Little Bit Does Help

People can't seem to grasp the concept that water is a precious resource and it just doesn't come from a tap in limitless supply.  txrad and I both make an effort to use as little water as necessary -- until this year Texas was having a pretty severe drought.  Nevertheless, we still used 3,200 gallons last month in our 2-person household.  Multiply that by the number of households in Austin and the businesses and industries which use far more, and I'm amazed we don't have shortages more often.

Even during the drought there were shopping centers here as well which had their sprinklers set on timers and were never ever adjusted.  On the rare days when we might have a good rain, the sprinklers would be gushing, and very often even when it was dry, many of the spriklers were spraying more into the street than on the grounds.

But worst of all, let's pity all the poor golfers who need their course nice and green.  Hate to offend any golfers who hang out here at PHB, but.... think about it.

 

 

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by: konagod @ Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 18:19:26 PM CDT