Current drought pales in comparison with 1950s 'drought of record'
By Farzad Mashhood
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/current-drought-pales-in-comparison-with-1950s-drought-1692176.htmlAMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 12:01 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 4, 2011
Published: 11:16 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2011
As Walter Prescott Webb, a University of Texas historian and noted U.S. water policy critic, wrote in 1953 : Droughts are unlike other natural disasters. They creep in slowly, with "no need for dramatic services of the Red Cross, martial law or the state police." And, in the end, "everybody loses."
He was writing about the drought of the 1950s, the benchmark to which all other droughts in Texas are compared. It ran from 1947 to 1957, and at its end, a state water official called it "the most costly and one of the most devastating droughts in 600 years."
The current drought is bad, but water experts and historians say the 1950s drought blows this one out of the water.
As of last week, three-quarters of the state is in exceptional drought, the worst category, and 99.85 percent is in some form of drought. The current drought — which has surpassed the 1950s drought in two of three key areas — has put a damper on water-based recreation, is spurring utilities to tighten the spigot on water use, and so far has cost Texas agriculture up to $4.8 billion.
But that loss is just a fraction of the toll of the drought of record, which reshaped Texas, ruining thousands of farmers and ranchers and pushing rural residents to migrate out of the country and into the cities. Losses from 1950 to 1957 were estimated at $22 billion in 2011 dollars, said Robert Mace, the Texas Water Development Board's deputy executive administrator.
"The drought we're in is severe, but it ain't your grandpa's drought," Mace said.
After the 1950s drought, policymakers developed drought contingency plans, expanded the state's water storage and sought new sources of groundwater. State and federal departments of agriculture put in place several safeguard programs to help farmers deal with severe droughts, including low-interest emergency loans and emergency access to hay and grazing land.
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It stopped raining in Central Texas in spring 1947. By summer 1951, nearly the entire state was in drought.
Some said God was punishing Texas. Others blamed agricultural losses on paved roads that blocked what rain there was from returning to the soil. Others blamed the drought on sunspot activity, according to a New York Times Magazine article from December 1953.
By the time it was declared over after months of slow, soaking rains, it was far too late, as ranchers had sold seed stock "at heartbreaking, emergency prices," the Austin American-Statesman reported at the time.
The drought forever changed the state's cultural landscape, accelerating the trend toward urbanization. In 1940, 29 percent of employed Texans were classified as farmers or farm workers, census data show. That number fell to 12 percent in 1960. Texas' economy is more diversified today; as of 2010, 2.8 percent of residents worked in agriculture.
As part of the state's recovery, Webb in the late 1950s called for a "billion-dollar cure" for the drought. Texas needed to build a network of reservoirs to protect against future droughts, he said.
And so the state began a campaign to store and conserve more water. From 1957 to 1970, workers built 69 dams, including Longhorn Dam on the Colorado River, which formed Lady Bird Lake in 1960.
In addition, underground aquifers were tapped as important resources for the future. From 1947 to 1957, groundwater use increased fivefold, state water board data show. Mace said cheaper pumps came as the drought spurred farmers to find more water sources.
"A lot of money was thrown to the water development board ... and they built reservoirs," said Raymond Slade Jr., a retired U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist and chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Hill Country Alliance. "The money was created because the drought got the Legislature's attention."
Utilities such as the Lower Colorado River Authority — a major provider of Central Texas' water — developed management plans to handle droughts at least as bad as the drought of record, defined by three key characteristics: 24 consecutive months of lakes Travis and Buchanan being less than full, lake inflows below 1950s levels, and less than 600,000 acre-feet of water in lakes Travis and Buchanan.
Inflows from January to June this year totaled 72,828 acre-feet, 30 percent of the volume during an average six-month period during the 1950s drought. The last time both lakes were full was February 2005.
But Central Texas has a ways to go before exceeding the drought of record on the third trigger. The lakes currently hold 998,000 acre-feet of water, down from almost 1.6 million in January but far more than the 600,000 minimum. River authority officials said lake volume should stay above the minimum through 2011.
Though lake capacity is greater than in the previous drought, experts warn that demand is now higher.
"There are a lot more straws in the reservoir," said Travis Miller with the Texas A&M University System's Agrilife Extension Service.
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Today's drought has etched itself into the records; the period from October to June is the driest on record, yielding just 10.97 inches of rain at Camp Mabry, compared with an average 25.53 inches for that span.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists blame the drought on normal climate variation and perhaps the driest recorded La Niña, a weather pattern that consists of an abnormal cooling of the Pacific Ocean and that brings drier and warmer conditions to Texas.
Texas was offered short reprieves from the 1950s drought when big downpours came in 1951 and 1952. Similar downpours in July 2010 and September 2010 were enough to break the 2007-2009 drought, some meteorologists say.
Others, including Bob Rose, the river authority's chief meteorologist, say its possible that the September rains didn't break the drought, but only gave it pause.
The tail end of the record drought, in 1956, increased in severity , similar to what we have seen in the past 10 months, Miller said. The current drought ranks third, behind the 1918 drought.
There's no way to tell how long this drought will last, but meteorologists are seeing signs that another La Niña is building and are predicting another dry year in 2012.
"In the fall, we can start to see more frequent rains, though not necessarily drought-ending," Rose said. "Beyond that we expect to go back into drought pattern."
The drought most directly impacts agriculture, but also hurts the tourism and recreation industries, Miller said.
Marinas on Lake Travis have seen a drop in business as the lake level has dropped. Only one public boat launch is open. Meanwhile, ranchers have had to make drastic changes.
Many are selling off herds that are simply too costly to feed, said David Anderson, a livestock economist with the Agrilife Extension Service. Selling cattle early, when they weigh less, and selling in high volumes is causing prices to plummet, he said.
"This is year one, and we're starting out at the driest year since 1956," Anderson said. "If this is the beginning of a longer drought, this is a bad beginning."
fmashhood@statesman.com; 445-3972
