Since I returned to the Aerie from the Bolt Hole on Monday it has been a steady—or nearly steady—period of overcast and rainy weather. After a summer of gloriously warm ad sunny weather that led to declarations of drought, it seems ole Ma Nature is trying to make it all up to us in one month. That rain that was in Blacksburg, VA the other night for the BC vs VT game has slid northward along the coast and reaches far enough inland to soak us here in north-central PA. After a very brief respite from the rains of Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the cloud cover arrived late Thursday night. All day Friday the overcast sky prevented the temperature from fluctuating much and the 7 AM reading of 50 degrees remained about the same all day. It was still 50 degrees whenever I checked throughout the day and at 7 PM. The rain didn’t start to fall until around 3:30-4:00 Friday afternoon but it has been steady ever since. Forecasters are calling for well over an inch. The bird bath is overflowing. Earthworms are drowning. It’s quite depressing.
I know, from looking at the AOL Welcome page, that the US is in dire straits as far as water is concerned. (The Drudge Report also posted the story: Much of U.S. Could See a Water Shortage ) Reservoirs are at record lows, lakes and rivers are drying up, etc. But looking at where much of the “shortage” is, I can’t help but wonder if it’s not because:
1) More people have moved to desert environments (read the southwest) where there is precious little water in the best of times
2) We haven’t had a real hurricane season on the east coast in years (Katrina and Rita were NOT along the east coast—they passed to the west of the areas of major concern—Georgia, the Carolinas, etc., and the last two years haven’t even seen a hurricane come close to Florida). Hurricanes used to be the primary source of water in the Everglades, for instance. Oh, and all that ditch digging to drain swamps back in the ‘50s—not a good idea after all.
3) NYC still hasn’t stopped all the water leakage in its vast system and has absolutely no way of monitoring how much is lost/wasted as it pumps water from the upstate reservoirs to homes and apartments. And how many of those homes and apartments in the city have meters, anyway?
4) With all the growth in human population and the corresponding need for freshwater, why has there not been a massive move to dredge the existing reservoirs to increase their capacity or to create more reservoirs? Wouldn’t a period of low water be the ideal time to do so? If coal miners can level mountains, couldn’t much of the same strip mining equipment be used to scoop out reservoirs?
5) Why do city planners in some of the southwest permit green lawns of Kentucky Blue Grass in desert environments? Why do they permit golf courses to plant grasses of any type? Or trees that are not native to the region? Until some or all of these issues are faced, people will simply look around and wonder what the heck the alarmists are talking about. Water shortage? Why, look at the pictures taken from the blimp at the PGA tournaments in February. Can’t be a water shortage. The course was green as could be and every house had a swimming pool.
Ya know, my fishing buddies and I have done some miraculous things re: water shortages. Every time we go to northern Quebec we’re warned about the dry conditions, be careful of any outside fires, watch your cigarettes, yada, yada, yada.
And 9 times out of 10, before the float plane is out of sight, the clouds will roll in and it will rain for the entire week. Perhaps we should contact some Chambers of Commerce here in the states and see if we can’t arrange a couple of fishing trips. We won’t even charge them anything beyond lodging, boat, bait and gasoline if we don’t produce any rain in a week—or maybe two. (Of course, we would want a disclaimer stating that we are not responsible for any damage caused by excessive rain, lightening, tornado or hurricane that might occur while we were in residence.)
Wait a minute, it stopped raining outside and I can see some nearly blue sky to the west. I’m going outside. Got to run a few errands before I go pick up my new truck.
See ya later.
UPDATE: The rain gauge must have sprung a leak. After about 18 hours of steady rain, it had just 0.3 inches of water in it. That just seems...wrong.
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