Monday, April 29, 1996

Drought keeping Texas Panhandle thirsty

By Associated Press

LUBBOCK (AP) - The effects range from flyaway hair - one Lubbock salon reports an extra 20 calls a week from concerned clients - to canceled hunts, lost wheat crops, higher farming expenses and a falling water table.

The first four months of 1996 have set the stage for one of the thirstiest years in decades in the Texas Panhandle.

Less than a half-inch of rain has fallen, and the long-term forecast indicates this will be a dry year.

"This is the driest four-month period we've had since 1965," said National Weather Service hydrologist Steve Drillette.

The lack of rain is contributing to wildfires, threatening towns' water supplies and may add corn and cotton to wheat on the list of damaged crops. Experts say the drought could have a significant impact on the South Plains economy and even on people's mental and physical health.

Historically, it would be tough to beat the drought of 1950-56. Rainfall then averaged only 14.05 inches a year, and 1956 saw only 10.86 inches, one of the lowest annual totals since the weather service began recording rainfall in 1911. Lubbock normally records about 17.76 inches a year.
But the toll from this stretch of aridity is mounting.

A recent blaze scorched about 20,000 acres of rangeland in Dickens, King and Kent counties.
In small towns like Floydada, water rates may have to rise to pay the higher cost of water from alternate sources. Although Lubbock probably has enough water to make it through the summer without rationing, according to water superintendent Bruce Blalack, towns with less money and fewer water resources depend on voluntary rationing to get them through long, dry summers.

For farmers with dryland wheat, the season is basically over. A recent survey by U.S. Wheat Associates in Washington indicates that half the Hard Red Winter crop, grown from Nebraska to Texas is in poor to very poor condition, and none is ranked as excellent.

Both corn and cotton growers are irrigating deeply, hoping to give their crops a chance for a respectable yield. Those hoping to take advantage of favorable corn prices have applied 60 days' worth of water to soak soil that's dry up to four feet deep.

"We have a good price, but there is nothing to sell," said Carl King of Dimmitt, president of the Texas Corn Growers Association.

The drought has affected almost every aspect of people's lives from hunting to health to hairdos.