By Joe Coulter
Wilmington, NC –
Editor's Note:The following is a senior project by New Hanover High School student Joe Coulter. This article has been edited by teachers and journalists. It is being published on our website as a final requirement for the project.
With the price of oil pushing 100 dollars a barrel and gasoline hitting 3 dollars a gallon, energy costs are in the forefront of our interests. But what about water? It is considered cheap, but it is absolutely necessary for life. What would happen if we were to run out?
In Macon, Georgia in 1994, Tropical Storm Alberto swamped the water plant, and the residents were without water for 18 days. The Georgia Emergency Management Agency had to bring in tankers of water to the Macon Coliseum where people came and filled up buckets and jugs. Volunteers and the National Guard had to actually deliver water to those without transportation. While that disaster was a flood, and our current problem is a drought, the end result could be strangely similar: no safe water for large groups of people.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the cities of Atlanta, Birmingham, and Charlotte are considered to be in an exceptional drought; the harshest drought designation that exists. On November 1, President Bush authorized the extraordinary measure of allowing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to direct water from Florida to Atlanta. In addition, the Drought Monitor-part of the National Climatic Data Center-also stated that 20% of the southeastern U.S., including significant parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama are in the most extreme drought designation.
According to the Weather Bureau, the drought is a result of abnormal weather patterns which transitioned from flooding and firestorms to severe drought over the last year. The drought is one of the worst on record and is reaching historical proportions in southeastern states such as North Carolina and Georgia. In fact, the National Climatic Data Center states that this is the worst drought in North Carolina's history since records began in 1895.
If the drought continues, the water situation could reach the level it did in Macon on a much larger scale across the southeast. One problem is that no one really knows what will happen in a situation where cities completely run out of water. Supplying water to one mid-sized city, such as Macon in 1994, is one level of difficulty. Providing water to large areas with numerous cities and towns is a potentially massive undertaking. If many cities in the southeast were to run out of water, officials may not have the resources to deal with every area.
On the extreme side, loss of water could result in the death of livestock as well as smaller crop yields. This could cripple food production for the region, and reduced resources could even cause severe social unrest across the country. However, while these situations are possible, they are also hypothetical, and are the worst possible outcomes of the drought. It is more probable that water will be rationed so that a household can only use a certain amount every day.
Most states do not have a concrete plan for a complete loss of water. Even now in the midst of the drought, most state officials seem to be dealing with the crisis on a day-to-day basis. Prior to a complete loss of water, any state would institute a rationing plan- one where water would only be turned on during certain days. If that was not sufficient to address the crisis, or if the drought continued to worsen, then the change would have to be all-encompassing, with aid programs to deal with businesses as well as people and public service industries. Most likely, some areas would have to drill emergency wells and get the National Guard to bring in tanks of water.
North Carolina is one of the main states affected by the drought. Most of the Piedmont and western sections of the state are in the extreme or exceptional drought designation; Wilmington and much of the east is in a severe drought. While Governor Mike Easley has advised citizens to make cutbacks in water usage over the last couple months, Wilmington has been slow to react. The drought has had a devastating effect across the state, and people do not seem to understand or to take seriously the drastic nature of this water crisis.
Wilmington has experienced less than 50% of the normal precipitation levels from July onward. Adding to the problem, North Carolina as a whole is experiencing hotter months than ever. In Raleigh, August of 2007 took the record of being the hottest month ever documented. In addition, the situation in North Carolina is not expected to improve in the foreseeable future. Water usage peaks in the summer months; during this time, very little rain fell in North Carolina. The combination of high water usage and minimal precipitation has increased the drought's effect on our state.
According to the Drought Management Advisory Board of North Carolina (DMAB), the winter months ahead are expected to continue to be mostly dry. At our current level of shortfall, Wilmington would need twenty-five to thirty inches of rainfall over the next six months to ameliorate the drought. Even this level of precipitation would not actually end the drought; it would simply reduce the dry conditions to a more moderate level. In addition, the DMAB states that the probability of the drought being lessened in that amount of time is below 15%. We are about to head into a La Nina winter which is part of the phenomena that is the ENSO cycle. La Nina will result in cooler than normal temperatures across the Pacific Ocean, as well as fewer storms for North Carolina. Fewer storms mean less precipitation and the outlook for the winter months says that Wilmington will be even drier than it is now. If the La Nina winter is strong, then the city could become even drier.
In reaction to the drought, Governor Easley initially called on local city officials to try to regulate water use. However, his efforts seemed to fall on mostly deaf ears and there did not seem to be much of a local response. Even the fountain on market street was kept running until late October. On October 22, the Governor stated that, Between now and Halloween, I am calling on North Carolinians across the state to cut our water use by half. The idea was part of his Operation Halve-It program.
At that point, the state did respond and water use dropped 30% as a whole by October 31. However, our conservation needs to be on a much stricter level if the drought continues. If the restrictions are not taken seriously, issues such as water rationing could be possibilities in the future.
While water usage levels first showed how many consider the drought as a simple annoyance, new levels show that people are beginning to realize the gravity of the drought situation. Water usage in the city dropped from around 19 million gallons a day to about 14 million by the end of October. Most of this was a result of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington turning off its sprinklers; last school year, the college sucked up a total of 92 million gallons of water by itself. That is more than twice as much as the 42 million gallons that the second highest water consumer-New Hanover Regional Medical center-consumes. Cuts in irrigation have also yielded much water conservation throughout the city.
However, as the drought gets worse, more cutbacks will need to be made. While UNCW, as well as other colleges in the state such as NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill, has taken initiative and decreased water consumption, other schools are not responding as well. The New Hanover County school system is using massive amounts of water every day. According to the New Hanover County Schools water use report, between November 2005 and October 2006 the schools collectively used about 45 million gallons of water. This year, in the same time span, we increased that amount to over 50 million gallons. Laney High School alone used well over 4 million gallons this year, New Hanover High used around 3 million, and even Blair Elementary used over 2 million gallons.
As of now, the schools are abiding by the plan that the city has set out for water emergencies. The problem is that the plan does not go into enough specifics for what the schools need to do during the drought. It is vital that the schools take initiative and institute water conservation programs instead of just meeting standards. Part of that involves regulations; part may involve attitudes.
As a student at New Hanover High School, I see water wasted every day. Students leave the sinks in the bathrooms running for entire days, and water fountains are scattered across the campus, even though many are never used. Students will be less likely to consume as much water if they are more aware of how severe the drought is. A large amount of students do not know anything about the drought, and if they do know, it does not seem to affect their daily water usage. The school systems need to institute awareness programs so that students can appreciate how precious water is at this point in time.
In addition to an awareness program to help motivate students to address the problem, administrators need to cut back the school's water use. Dr. Rick Holliday, an assistant superintendent for New Hanover County Schools, stated that the schools have stopped watering athletic fields. Beyond that, they are relying on direction from the governmental offices, according to Dr. Holliday. If schools could take the initiative and institute some water reforms on their own, students' awareness of the problem would be increased. More awareness for students could also translate to a drop in water use in homes.
While it is vital that people act locally to combat the drought, the problem is nationwide. In the year 2000, the U.S. used over 148 trillion gallons of water; that is about 500,000 gallons per person. This nation's water supplies cannot support this type of consumption with present precipitation levels, especially when record temperatures are increasing evaporation.
So what can we do to fight the drought? The answer is simple: conserve and use water wisely. If people in Wilmington (and across the country) would only use water for important purposes, we might be able to see our way through the drought. Water conservation is not limited to watering cars or lawns. It means people need to take the initiative to make significant lifestyle changes to decrease their water intake. For example, people could save over 1000 gallons of water a week if they kept their showers to less than 5 minutes. Even with simple changes such as that, with each person in Wilmington conserving 5 gallons a day, the city as a whole could save 625,000 gallons of water a day. 5 gallons is a very small percentage considering the average Wilmington resident uses 138 gallons of water a day. 74% of interior home water use is attributed to bathrooms, and if people put in low-flow shower heads and toilets then they could easily save more than that amount.
Another thing we can do as a community to fight the drought is to obey the mandatory water restrictions that are in effect. Prohibited activities include:
-Watering lawns, grass, shrubbery, trees, flowers and vegetable gardens except by hand-held hoses, containers or drip irrigation systems.
-Washing any type of mobile equipment such as cars, trucks, trailers, boats or airplanes. Car wash businesses may continue to operate.
-Washing outside surfaces such as streets, driveways or parking lots, or pressure washing the exterior of office buildings, homes or apartments.
-Using water for any ornamental fountain, pool or pond.
-Serving drinking water in restaurants or cafeterias, unless specifically requested.
More importantly than obeying restrictions, people need to understand the severity of the local conditions. They have to realize that if they do not cut back, they could end up standing in a long line with the rest of the people in the city waiting to fill up a bucket for water for their entire family. As Ken Davis, a spokesperson for the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, stated when comparing Macon's water outage in 1994 with the 2007 drought, Whether what Macon did could be done for 85 counties (in Georgia) at once, that's certainly worth trying all your might to prevent from happening.