• U.S.

Environment: The Great Western Drought of 1977

11 minute read
TIME

At midday, Wheat Farmer Clyde Eveleigh stared out his front window near Ulysses, Kans. His yard light, which turns on automatically when the sky darkens, glowed dimly through clouds of gritty dust. “I’m guessing that we got wiped out today,” he reported, “but I’m not about to go out into the fields to find out—the air is so black I might get lost.” In eastern Colorado, too, gusts of wind up to 90 m.p.h. scooped up the drought-dry topsoil, hurling some five tons of the precious dirt off each acre of land during a 24-hour storm. Observed Rod Johnson, a federal agriculture official: “The eastern three-fourths of Kiowa County is moving.”

New Dangers. In a grimy arc, from Nebraska through the plains of Kansas and Colorado, on into the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, scenes right out of The Grapes of Wrath suddenly materialized in the swirl of dust billowing up to 12,000 feet. The grit sifted into houses, causing eyes to burn and coating tongues. As visibility neared zero, motorists pulled to sides of roads, and highways were ordered closed. At week’s end the dust had blown over the southeastern states, turning the sky a milky yellow. To many worried Westerners, the worst dust storm in some 20 years brought back memories of the Dust Bowl, a disaster that could recur if there is no dramatic break in the lingering and worsening drought.

As people east of the Rockies choked, Californians were enjoying what was a welcome phenomenon for that parched state: rain fell for five days —the first substantial precipitation in eight weeks. At least temporarily, the culprit responsible for much of the nation’s wild and freezing weather—the stationary high-pressure system off the California coast—had broken up. Its departure allowed westerly winds to carry clouds over the Rockies and dump long-overdue snow on barren slopes in Oregon, Wyoming and Colorado. California’s refreshed farmers reveled in the rain, and mountain ski operators romped in the snow—but federal weather experts warned of ominous signs that the blocking pressure “high” might be reforming. It was also clear that the accumulated moisture was but a drop in the bucket of water needed to prevent massive crop failures, hydroelectric power shortages, widespread economic losses, and mounting tensions over water allocations this summer and fall.

But the increasing prospect of a disastrous drought had ramifications far beyond the West. It raised once again basic questions of how the nation should use one of its most vital resources, just how much population growth the available water can sustain. As the U.S. faced what scientists termed the most serious drought conditions anywhere on the globe, a world perennially short of food might not be able to look to America to ease its hunger. Domestic food prices seemed certain to increase, job layoffs could follow as water-and hydroelectric-hungry industries are forced to reduce their operations. Added to the effects of the East’s frigid winter, the drought could pose new dangers of inflation and unemployment, threatening President Carter’s economic stimulus and budget-balancing goals.

Much of the fear gripping the arid areas of the nation is over what may happen, rather than what has already happened. That foreboding was heightened by some climatologists in Denver last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; they told a special session on the drought that the current extended dryness is threateningly similar to the conditions that preceded the drought-and-famine days of the mid-1930s. If the drought continues for merely another 30 days, warned the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Richard E. Felch, “we’ve got a good chance of another Dust Bowl.”

Pumping Air. But if the worst lies ahead, the present has already brought trouble to many. While such Northern California communities as Alameda, Sonoma and Marin counties (TIME, Feb 14) faced mandatory household rationing of water, other thirsty communities were practicing voluntary conservation. People were suddenly conscious of the wasteful ways in which they use water: 36 gallons for a full bathtub, 25 gallons for a long shower, 30 gallons to wash dishes, seven to flush a toilet, ten gallons a minute to sprinkle a lawn. Governor Jerry Brown declared that he would decide within a few weeks whether to impose statewide mandatory rationing. Meanwhile, he urged all Californians to cut consumption by 25% in their homes, suggesting, as one saving step, that “toilet dams” (plastic pieces that reduce the volume but not the velocity of water) be installed in the tanks. Senator S.I. Hayakawa went further, advising that urination did not really require a flush (“No pull for a pee” has become a California quip).

But the water pressures were setting neighbor against neighbor. State agencies in Sacramento reported hundreds of citizens writing or telephoning to complain of others who were furtively washing their cars or watering lawns at night. The drought also caused the longstanding tensions between Northern and Southern California to flare anew. Around Los Angeles and farther south, sprinklers were spewing water at their usual pace, swimming pools were being refilled and car washes were wide open. Northern Californians were especially outraged by plans of private real estate developers in Orange County to fill a man-made lake with more than a billion gallons of water—much of it transported from the north. State officials ordered hearings last week on whether the project should be stopped.

While the water shortage is pinching large urban areas, and while some small communities depending on their own wells and reservoirs are nearly out of water, the drought is having its most devastating effect on agriculture. Some 85% of California’s water is used in agribusiness operations. While sprinklers last week were still dousing rows of lettuce and greens in the Salinas Valley, cherry trees to the north near Santa Clara were dry and dying. In the state that supplies 25% of the nation’s food, the northern irrigation systems feeding off the diminishing underground water table were beginning to pump only air. Even if rainfall were to return to normal, at least $1 billion in crop losses is expected in California alone.

Dumping Herds. Farther north, in Oregon, Idaho and Washington, the drought’s full impact is not expected until summertime, when the current lack of snowpack in the mountains is almost certain to lead to a water crisis. The usual snowpack for this season at the 6,000-foot level on Mount Hood is 143 inches; after a heavy snow last week it had risen to only 21 inches. It is the snowpack that replenishes streams, reservoirs and irrigation ditches, and with only a modest runoff in sight, Oregon officials expect as much as a $2 billion economic loss by fall. The Pacific Northwest’s forests are so dry and flammable that Oregon Governor Robert Straub has hired 400 unemployed workers to train as fire fighters and is urging the creation of a four-state regional fire-fighting task force to coordinate battles against the flames expected this summer.

As the levels of streams, rivers and reservoirs fall, the region is also anticipating hydroelectric power shortages. Unlike many parts of the country, the Northwest relies on water power for some 90% of its electrical needs. Already, the huge Bonneville Power Administration and various utilities are cutting back some industrial users. As the crisis mounts, the Governors of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana will meet next week to plan joint antidrought strategies.

The Midwest’s dry period presents at least an equal threat of disaster. The danger is twofold: a lack of moisture to nourish either the winter wheat crop, already in the ground, or the crop scheduled to be planted in the spring, and the massive soil erosion almost certain to occur as the windy season now approaching wreaks havoc on dusty acreage unprotected by snow cover. Lack of green grazing land and hay is also forcing cattlemen either to sell off their thin animals at low prices or fatten them on expensive trucked-in feed. As the cost of feed has soared, ranchers virtually dumped herds, further depressing what they could get for them.

Stumping Scientists. In southwestern Minnesota, in the town of Ivanhoe, Ray Heard, a beef and dairy farmer, figures that he has lost $30,000 in the past three years and is approaching bankruptcy. This year, as his grazing land turned to dust, he spent $10,000 on hay. “We’re practically giving away cattle, the prices are so low,” he says. “I’m hanging on by my toenails.” In just the past year, Minnesota has lost 3,000 of its 34,000 dairy farmers because of soaring feed costs and dry pastures. In South Dakota, a 3,600-acre ranch sold last week for $190 an acre; last June its owner was asking $287 an acre. “I know that ranch is worth more than that,” says Banker Howard Peterka of Miller, S.D., “but everyone is overextended. There’s no borrowing power around.”

Even as far east as Illinois, where there were some heavy rains last week, wells are going dry. In Virginia, Ill. (pop. 1,800), the town reservoir has only a 30-day supply of water left. Lee Reynolds shut down his car wash. The local Laundromat was about to close—but it burned down first. Water is so scarce in many South Dakota towns, like Toronto (pop. 200), that assembly of a rescue “rain train” of 100 tank cars carrying 20,000 gallons each from the Missouri River is under consideration. Toronto’s Lutheran pastor, the Rev. Daniel Chell, borrows water from a neighbor’s cistern to flush toilets, boils rice in milk instead of water, and finds he is hard put to practice the “steadfastness and patience” he preaches. Some families in Minnesota, where 1,718 private wells dried up this winter, are melting snow for drinking water. Parts of Nebraska are the driest they have been in 46 years.

What can be done to avert disaster? Last week Governors of eleven Western states and representatives of seven others met in Denver with Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus to consider specific steps. They blasted President Carter’s decision to eliminate funding, at least temporarily, of 19 long-range federal water projects. Though none of these projects could have any impact on the current drought, the Governors said that they were “angry” and “stunned” at the poor timing of Carter’s announcement. The Secretary promised to ask President Carter to appoint a national coordinator for drought relief in the form of federal loans and other financial aid to help individuals survive economically if the drought ruined their crops or threw them out of work. The Governors also agreed to create a task force that could channel such requests for aid and coordinate weather-modification programs.

As the scientists assessed the implications of the current drought at their Denver symposium, many urged that a new look be taken at long-range water problems. Stephen H. Schneider, head of the climate project for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., argued that the nation should always be prepared for droughts, rather than surprised by them, because they are a regular feature of the U.S. climate. Although the timing of droughts cannot be predicted, they have been occurring in the plains states at roughly 20-to 22-year intervals, and are possibly related in an unknown fashion to sunspot activity (which has an average eleven-year, peak-to-peak cycle of intensity).

Old Disaster Areas. Schneider thus argued that the U.S. should be building a food reserve in anticipation of droughts, instead of decreasing surpluses in good years to maintain higher prices. He would also like to see far more conservation of water on a regular basis, rather than only during crises. University of Nebraska Agricultural Meteorologist Norman J. Rosenberg advocated breeding plants that require less water for growth and survival, greater soil conservation measures and more widespread planting of windbreaks to reduce soil erosion.

Beyond such techniques to reduce the dire consequences of future droughts, University of Nebraska Political Scientist Robert Miewald asked more fundamental questions about the way the nation uses its land. “What really is the problem in Marin County?” he asked his scientific colleagues. “Is it too little water? Or is it too many people? Has the area been developed beyond the capability of its resources to support people?” He suggested that perhaps people should live where water is available rather than haul water to where they want to live.

Miewald pointed out that some South Dakota counties have been declared disaster areas for one reason or another four years in a row. “Are those people in the right line of work?” he asked. “Maybe Mother Nature is trying to tell us something.” Americans, Miewald suggested, “might even have to forfeit the sacred right to have a green lawn” when water is scarce for growing wheat. “The era of abundance is over.”

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