Community | May 04, 2011 | 5 comments

Survivor of dustbowl now battles a fiercer drought

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/04dust.html

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JanforGore
While tornadoes and floods have ravaged the South and the Midwest, the remote western edge of the Oklahoma Panhandle is quietly enduring a weather calamity of its own: its longest drought on record, even worse than the Dust Bowl, when incessant winds scooped up the soil into billowing black clouds and rolled it through this town like bowling balls.

With a drought continuing to punish much of the Great Plains, this one stands out. Boise (rhymes with voice) City has gone 222 consecutive days through Tuesday with less than a quarter-inch of rainfall in any single day, said Gary McManus, a state climatologist. That is the longest such dry spell here since note-keeping began in 1908.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s, caused in part by the careless gouging of the earth in an effort to farm it, created an epic environmental disaster. Experts say it is unlikely to be repeated because farming has changed so much. Boise City recovered from the Dust Bowl and has periodically enjoyed bountiful years since.

But this drought is a reminder of just how parched and unyielding life can be along this wind-raked frontier, fittingly called No Man’s Land, and it is not clear how many more ups and downs Boise City can take.

“The community is drying up,” Mark Axtell, the area’s only funeral director, said on a walk through the cemetery, where brown tufts of buffalo grass crunched underfoot.

In the last decade, Boise City lost almost 16 percent of its population, according to the 2010 census. Just 1,312 people live here now — far fewer than the 3,000 who bought the first lots in 1908, only to discover that they had been hoodwinked. The land was inhospitable, and promises of railroads, water and trees (Boise is from the French “le bois,” meaning trees) were a fraud.

cont.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Culture,   Sustainable Agriculture,   4 more
  2. tags:
    Environment,  Drought,  Survival,  Crops,  3 more
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5 comments // Survivor of dustbowl now battles a fiercer drought

  • samthesixth
  • JanforGore
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • Image
    • ThatCrazyLibertarian:

      Each year it drops another few inches as it is literally being sucked dry by the tens of thousands of agricultural wells that tap into it. It's hard to say how much longer it has based on future conservation efforts if any, weather patterns, conmen like T. Boone Pickens being allowed to buy it up to make a profit from it, and also any approval to allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built over it which would pose a potential risk to the drinking water supply. But there is no doubt it is being sucked dry while not being recharged by any significant rainfall or rivers. And the fact that it is fossil water means that once it is gone, it is gone. One place called Happy, Texas isn't so happy anymore as it has seen it literally disappear. This is indeed something we all need to be concerned about as we see the effects of biodistress. Without it our agriculture would not survive for long.

    • 1 year ago
  • gump
    • 0
      gump  
    • JanforGore:

      Thanks jan. Do you have maps of the fracking damage to the water supply in the same areas? I was in a small town in northeastern Colorado about 8 years ago when I heard a sound out on the dry prarie. A distant whine. When I asked I was told it was a compression station. I said compress what? they said gas well . I said there are no pipes to move gas so why would they be compressing the gas? They didnot know what to say and offered they take it out of one formation and put it into another rock formation. Only in the last few months I learned about fracking of deep geologic formations to release gas. One of the most insane of human endevors .Someone in my house from that small town of Akron Colorado told me that they can now light thier water on fire when they first turn on thier water faucets inside thier houses. He said he has seen this.!!!!! But he knew nothing of what fracking meant. I dont think the people 8 years ago knew iether. When I first went there in 1986 I thought the place was heaven on earth. Untill I learned the county governments were makeing crystal meth and the people were suffering a lot of terrible psychosis. Many of the excuses for the drug business were based on the hardship faced by people in this place of endless drought. So now they degraded what little water they did have. Madness.!!!!! At least I have heard reports that the meth production has been moved away since I published in 1988. I am suspicious. But hope it is true.God help us all.

    • 1 year ago
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