Drought

When I was 7, I wanted a creek for Christmas. I could picture it cracking through our old, dry neighborhood, splashing noisily between boulders and rhododendrons, ushering up sweet airs of minerals, roots and the creeks we camped beside in the national forest. Water attracted me more than dolls or games, perhaps because it was alive - enchanted and changing. Cool cow-pasture ponds in July. Jewels of winter hoarfrost popping out of brittle mud. Blizzards. Rain puddles. Sycamore-vapored rivers.

A well has provided Alice and Frank Kushner with water for the 37 years they have lived in their Westminster area home. But in late July, the well went dry. Once the Kushners curtailed showering, washing dishes and doing laundry, some flow returned. Still, the couple decided it was time to connect to Westminster's more reliable public system. With memories of rampant well failures across the metropolitan region during the 2002 drought still vivid, public officials and water resource experts say they are concerned that more private wells could fail over the next month of this bone-dry summer.

A Western drought that began in 1999 has continued after the respite of a couple of wet years that now feel like a cruel tease. But this time people in the driest states are not just scanning the skies and hoping for meteorological rescue. About $2.5 billion in water projects are planned or under way in four states, the biggest expansion in the West's quest for water in decades. Among them is a proposed 280-mile pipeline that would direct water to Las Vegas from northern Nevada. A proposed reservoir just north of the California-Mexico border would correct an inefficient delivery system that lets excess water pass to Mexico.

Loans available for drought losses The state has made $5 million in loans available for drought-stressed farms. Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday during a daylong visit to Harford County that Maryland farmers who have lost crops because of drought or weather-related events this year can apply for a low-interest loan. "The drought has been one of our toughest issues so far," O'Malley told a gathering of Harford officials. "These loans will offset the hardest-hit farms." The loans, offered at a fixed 5 percent APR interest rate, can be repaid over five years.

An ecumenical drought conference today at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor will focus on how to help farm families in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.Agencies, including Farm Aid, Orphan's Grain Train and Church World Services, are joining the Church of the Brethren in the effort, said conference coordinator Stan Noffsinger, manager of the Brethren Center's Emergency Response Services Ministry."People will consider the drought's impact on a heavily populated area with hundreds of family farmers," said Noffsinger.

Joel Greer, a private pilot, retired real estate developer and part-time farmer, never thought much about decorating the landscape around his Taneytown farm when he began raising chrysanthemums.But that's what he did.Greer has grown 12,000 chrysanthemums for the past two years along Old Taneytown Road, covering his acre-sized front lawn like a brightly colored quilt."It's absolutely gorgeous," said Jean Masters of Taylorsville, who stopped recently with her husband, Edward, to admire the view and purchase some of the mums.

The modern farm has computers, satellites and biotechnology, none of which can produce the one thing it needs most: rain. And because farmers in central and western Maryland generally don't irrigate, this spring's drought has hit hard.While they can't make it rain, government officials and farmers are working together to limit the drought's impact, said Cone Byler-Hsu, a program manager with the Maryland office of the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.There are some ways to deal with drought, extension agents say, such as planting short-season varieties of corn and soybeans, but it can be a gamble if the whole season is dry.Those who plant corn and soybeans to feed their cattle have to consider options such as feeding more hay, but that has the drawback of reducing milk production, and therefore, income.

Perhaps the best thing about the summer of '99 was that it was too dry for Japanese beetles. The summer drought was a whopper, followed so far by a wet, blustery fall. Plants withered, flowers died and trees crashed to the ground.Gardeners are accustomed to dealing with nature's force, but these days have tested even the hardiest among us. Yet good gardeners know there are lessons to be learned from the earth -- and elements -- even during challenging times."The most important thing we've learned ... is that water is a luxury," says William Stine, chief horticulturist for Baltimore's Department of Recreation and Parks.

Canucks: Donald Brashear broke an 18-game goal-scoring drought dating back to last March 20. Greg Hawgood scored a third-period goal for his 200th career point.

FREDERICK -- Standing in a scraggly soybean field near here, Gov. Parris N. Glendening asked the U.S. agriculture secretary yesterday to declare farmers in 17 Maryland counties eligible for disaster relief from the extreme drought that has stunted their crops and threatened their livelihood.Glendening, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes inspected Vaughn Harshman's rain-starved fields southwest of Frederick and heard the 41-year-old farmer describe how the harsh weather and a slumping farm economy are pushing him to consider quitting.

Five weeks after a dry winter dropped Maryland into an official drought and the state's farmers and hydrologists began wringing their hands, it's over. "Right after we put out the press release ... it started raining," said Daniel J. Soeder, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "But hey, if that's what it takes to end a drought, it works for me." After the driest first three months of a year on record for Baltimore, abundant rains in April have now sloshed over into May, he said.

Marylanders may see some welcome rain this weekend, but it's not expected to fully reverse what has become the driest start to a calendar year in 138 years of record-keeping in Baltimore. After nearly two months with only a few inches of snow and scant rainfall across most of Maryland, more than half the state officially fell into a drought this week. Dry weather that began in October has left streams flowing at record or near-record lows for this time of year, hydrologists say. Water tables are falling when they should be recharging, and farm fields and pastures are growing short of the moisture they'll need to support early growth after planting this spring.

D.A. Weibring tried his hardest not to get too emotional yesterday. For the most part, he was successful. He tried not to cry after his final putt dropped. Instead, he bit his lip, blinked like a man caught looking directly into the sun and then shuffled across the green in the direction of his wife, Kristy. But by the time he threw his arms around her, the emotion of it all was a bit too much. There were tears, however brief. This was no time to be stoic. It was time to celebrate all of life's blessings, and time to celebrate the biggest victory of his life.

May rains helped end the latest drought and got Greg Koppenhoefer of Ellicott City thinking about the past: "This area suffered a 14-year drought (1958-1971) which ended dramatically in June of '72. Comment?" We did have quite a stretch of dry weather between 1962 and 1970 - nine years. Only 1966 topped the 42-inch annual average. And 1965 was the third-driest year on record for Baltimore, with just 28.22 inches. The streak ended with 53 inches in 1971, well before Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972.

The creeks are full, the fields are soggy, and the drought that had Maryland farmers and water managers so worried late last year is finally behind us. "Certainly in Maryland, there's no drought left," said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs. "It's hard to get 8 inches of rain and still have drought." Improved rainfall in recent months has nearly filled Baltimore's three reservoirs. Farmers in Southern Maryland, where the dry conditions lingered longest, are happy.

Rays@Orioles 12:35 p.m. [MASN] Don't be fooled by the early starting time. This is a live game, not a replayed classic from seasons past. Pirates@Nationals 7 p.m. [MASN] Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman ended the longest home run drought of his young career Tuesday. Not to be outdone, the Pirates will try to post a winning record for the first time since the Eisenhower administration.

Joe Penn, a Kentucky horse and mule auctioneer, is not a sentimental man - not once he enters the stockyard. He knows that the value of many horses is measured in pounds of flesh. But this winter, the horses are thinner than usual, and Penn finds himself wondering what becomes of the creatures with bare ribs and flat rumps, the ones that now sell for as little as $10. "I wonder," Penn said. "And then I tell myself I probably don't want to know." In many parts of the United States, horse owners are struggling to feed their animals after a severe drought doubled - even tripled - the cost of hay. The drought has exacerbated a glut in the low end of the horse market, brought on by years of over-breeding and the recent economic downturn.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released its final production estimate on last year's grain harvest, which shows that nature does not treat all farms equally. While grain farmers in Maryland suffered through their worst growing season since the drought of 2002, their colleagues in the Midwest harvested their second-best corn crop on record. In terms of yield per acre - the best way to measure the productivity of grain fields - Maryland farms produced 103 bushels of corn from each acre planted last year, a figure nearly 28 percent lower than the harvest in 2006.

When I was 7, I wanted a creek for Christmas. I could picture it cracking through our old, dry neighborhood, splashing noisily between boulders and rhododendrons, ushering up sweet airs of minerals, roots and the creeks we camped beside in the national forest. Water attracted me more than dolls or games, perhaps because it was alive - enchanted and changing. Cool cow-pasture ponds in July. Jewels of winter hoarfrost popping out of brittle mud. Blizzards. Rain puddles. Sycamore-vapored rivers.

It was "a real tough year" for Maryland's Christmas tree farms, as the drought killed off many seedlings and saplings and stressed the mature trees that will go into homes this holiday season. While there should be a ready supply of market-size trees for families looking to cut their own, they "do look a little bit more sparse than they normally look," said Mike Gagarine of Good Spirits Christmas Tree Forest in Hagerstown. But Gagarine said he lost close to two-thirds of the 3,000 seedlings he planted this year, twice what he would lose in a typical year.