Winter offers little hope for regional drought relief
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

With more than half the state now under exceptional or extreme drought, calls for water conservation measures have increased as local governments tighten water-use restrictions.

The latest advisory of the N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council showed despite rain over a week ago, the state is drying up and some water supplies could be tapped out in the year ahead. Watauga County remains rated in the most severe category, with people advised to limit water usage to “those uses that are essential to ensure public health and safety.” Three of the county’s four municipalities have already enacted water-use restrictions, either voluntary or mandatory.

In the wake of the latest drought advisory on Oct. 30, Gov. Mike Easley called on all state residents to continue their conservation efforts, even if using a private well instead of a municipal water system. A late-October wet spell brought between 1 and 6 inches of rain to most parts of the state, temporarily bolstering surface-water supplies and reservoirs. However, with climatologists predicting a drier-than-average winter, no long-term relief is in sight.

Easley renewed his call for people to avoid crop or landscape irrigation, car washing or hosing paved surfaces even if not under mandatory restrictions. He said those using private well water had just as much a responsibility to conserve as those whose water is supplied by a reservoir, because all sources of water are important to sustain and protect during the drought.

According to the Governor’s Office, state and federal officials who monitor ground water by measuring the water levels in 45 drought indicator wells statewide have found that those wells are approaching or exceeding record lows.

The N.C. Division of Water Resources and the U.S. Geological Survey monitor ground water levels in those wells because the drought indicator wells respond to rainfall quickly and their levels are a measure of the amount of water stored in the subsurface that is available to discharge to surface water features such as lakes and ponds.

The closest drought monitoring well to Watauga County is in the Beaver Creek community of Ashe County, and data collected there suggests the water table has dropped about 10 inches since May.

Due to the drought, many people are required to restrict their water use because surface water reservoirs are draining more quickly than they are restored by rainfall. To get around this restriction, some people have been using well water to wash their cars and irrigate their lawns, since well water is not under restriction.

However, Easley’s comments extend the responsibility to all water users, even those not facing fines.

As of Nov. 1, 55 percent of the state’s public water systems were under some form of mandatory restrictions, while another 27 percent were under mandatory restrictions.

The town of Boone is currently under voluntary restrictions and is reviewing its ordinance to more easily move to tighter restrictions if needed. Beech Mountain and Blowing Rock have imposed mandatory restrictions that could lead to civil fines for violations.

A U.S. Geologic Survey measure of stream flow in the Watauga River in Sugar Grove put the flow on Nov. 2 at 58 cubic feet per second, well below the average flow of 222 cfs recorded over 67 years of monitoring.

The lowest flow ever recorded there was in 1953, at 24 cfs.