California not the only state to face water shortage

Montana was listed in the GAO report as the state most likely to have a statewide water shortage in the next ten years. Tim Davis, Montana Water Resources Division administrator, said that in any given year, any part of the state could have a water shortage. Under direction from the state legislature, Davis said his department has begun planning for water shortages.

“Drought is one of those disasters that you have to plan for,” he said. “You can’t just immediately go out there and change how you’re using water on the ground or invest in efficiencies unless you have been doing it all along.”

Montana is making plans to share water between communities during drought periods, and field irrigation methods will be altered to save water.

Texas has used lessons learned from past droughts to improve its water supply conditions. Today, 36 percent of the state is experiencing moderate or exceptional drought, an improvement from 2011, when 100 percent of the state was experiencing drought, said Dr. Robert Mace, deputy executive administrator of the Texas Water Development Board. The 2011 crisis caught the attention of Texas lawmakers and in 2013, 74 percent of voters said yes to a referendum calling for $2 billion of the state’s rainy day fund to be used to leverage $27 billion in bonds to implement a state water conservation plan. That plan is now being implemented as water demands grow. The population of Texas is expected to increase by 80 percent in the next fifty years.

“We are working with water providers, water managers, to try to plan for enough water in case of a repeat of the ‘drought of record,’” Mace said. “We are taking a cold, sober look at what the needs (for) water are going to be.” Like, Montana, Texas plans to allow bordering communities to tap water from each other. “The communities that really struggle with drought are the smaller communities,” he said. “(State officials) will go out and make suggestions on how to run their systems more efficiently.”

Drought conditions in Kansas have also improved this year. In 2014, 93 percent of the state was facing severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office, said this year’s improvement is due to more rainfall, which varies from year to year, so the state plans for the worst- using the drought record of 1952-1957 as a benchmark. The water office reports that the state’s Ogallala Aquifer is declining faster than it is recharging, and that reservoirs are filling with sediment. If conditions remain unchanged throughout the next fifty years, Ogallala will be 70 percent depleted and the state’s reservoirs will be 40 percent filled with sediment. A water resources sub-cabinet has been created to advise the governor on water issues.

States on the East Coast are not immune from drought conditions. The GAO report notes that North Carolina and Delaware are the eastern states most likely to experience regional water shortages in the next decade. Streeter says more eastern states are asking for his advice as they prepare for a future with less water. “Drought is insidious, it doesn’t land on you overnight, it creeps up on you,” Streeter said. “Agriculture feels it first — you can start having crop failures within weeks of having no rain. Everybody else takes months.”

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the western part of North Carolina is already “abnormally dry,” though it does not yet meet the “drought” definition. In 2007 and 2008, the state suffered the worst drought in its history, which prompted a state law expanding the powers of the governor and local leaders to respond. Communities are encouraged to cooperate on water conservation projects. The state’s population growth and changing weather patterns “leave us vulnerable to more serious droughts in the future,” read the state water plan. Sarah Young, a spokeswoman for the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said state officials speak with U.S. Drought Monitor officials every week to assess North Carolina’s conditions.