The most important resource in the world that's prone to shortages at the moment isn't oil. It's water. And drought isn't just a potential future result of global warming. Drought is here—not just in Africa or the Middle East, but in America.
This fall found huge areas of the South stricken by drought. Atlanta had the driest year on record since 1954; pictures of dwindling Lake Lanier, which supplies the city with water, were frightening. Authorities begged residents to report neighbors watering their yards; people complied, their fear for their water supply overriding their dislike of informing. The shriveling of the lake started fights between Georgia, Florida and Alabama, which also use its water.
All North Carolina is suffering from drought, most of the state from two categories designated as "extreme" and "extraordinary," which is even worse than extreme. In Florida, Lake Okeechobee is perilously low, as are supplies in other parts of the peninsula.
In Massachusetts last summer and fall there was drought. In October the state Department of Environmental Protection noted stream flows of only five percent of normal in some parts of the state. Even in the Valley, some farms suffered from shortages of good hay due to drought conditions.
The drought isn't just a phenomenon of 2007. In 2006 the federal Department of Agriculture issued drought declarations for 27 states, including Massachusetts, that made agricultural businesses eligible to receive disaster loans from the Small Business Administration.
If drought conditions become the norm, people will do well to heed measures being recommended in southern Florida. Not only are Floridians being asked to reduce outdoor watering and to fix leaky taps, use water-saving shower heads, run dishwashers only when they're full—the ABCs of water conservation—they're being coached, when they run water to get it hot, to save the cooler water for drinking and other uses in the kitchen and in the yard, so as much water as possible goes into the ground and returns to the natural cycle, rather than being poured along with contamined effluent into the sewer system.?
