As cooler weather finally arrives in Texas, the Texas state climatologist, John Nielson-Gammon, has some bad news. The current drought, which has devastated Texas’s agriculture, may last another five to 10 years.
The drought, which began in 2005, albeit with 2007 and 2010 being “wet years,” is part of a pattern last seen in the 1950s when La Nina persisted for seven years, drying up the Lone Star State and accelerating a migration from rural areas to the big cities. It is uncertain what a repeat of that lengthy period of little rain entails.
The president’s snarky quip against Texas Gov. Rick Perry aside, the drought pattern is not related to the theory of global warming. But the results, at least in the short term, have been just as devastating.
Because half the cotton crop has been destroyed, the price of cotton is due to shoot through the roof. Texas ranchers have been obliged to sell of much of their herds, which will send beef prices plummeting in the short term before the rise sharply later.
The question arises, what can be done about the drought to mitigate its effects. After the 1950s drought, Texas constructed a series of artificial lakes that exist to this day. But the summer of 2011 has been so severe that even this measure has proven insufficient. Cities like Houston have instituted water restrictions. Brown lawns in many subdivisions have proven to be the norm.
Even before the current drought, the Texas Water Development Board has instituted a number of innovative water projects, which include both brackish and sea water desalination plants. The TWDB is also researching ways to reuse water. The town of Big Spring, Texas is building a water recycling plant that will turn waste water, ordinarily poured into local streams, into potable water and sent back into the town’s water system.
No doubt Texas will begin to look at these and other solutions to mitigate the effects of the drought, should it become as long term as Nielson-Gammon suspects that it will be. The question, as it always does when it comes to large scale public works, comes down to money. Under the current economic slowdown, Texas, like every other state of the union and the federal government, does not have a lot of money coming in.
However the question may be whether not spending the money to increase Texas’ water supply would cost more in the long run. That is a question politicians in Austin are bound to have to wrestle with.
Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.