Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

Water Matters: What If You Turned on the Tap and Nothing Happened?

Story by Kathleen McFadden and Corinne Saunders

Editor’s note: This week, High Country Press presents the first installment of a three-part series looking at the issue of water, the statewide drought, what actions individuals can take and what’s going on at the state level.

Water is something many of us take for granted. We use water from the time we wake up in the morning until we turn off the lights and go to bed at night.

We fill the coffee pot, cook some oatmeal, brush our teeth, flush the toilet and take a shower before the day even gets off to a good start. As the day progresses, there’s hand washing, more toilet flushes, more cooking, dishwashing, the kids’ baths—and usually all these activities go on while we’re on virtual autopilot. We turn on the tap and don’t even acknowledge our expectation that water will come out of it.

But if you’ve ever had your pipes freeze and burst, had your well pump malfunction or had to deal with another type of plumbing problem that forced you to do without water for even a few hours, you quickly become startlingly aware of how big a role water plays in everyday life.

A lot of folks in North Carolina—from Governor Easley to the staff members at our municipal public utilities departments—are hoping that people turn off their autopilot expectations and become highly aware of how much water they use every day and how important water is to normal functioning.

The big reason for the immediacy is the statewide drought. According to information provided to the Joint Select Committee on the Agricultural Drought Response—both Senator Steve Goss and Representative Cullie Tarleton serve on that committee—the current drought is the worst the state has faced since 1925.

According to Tarleton, the economic impact of the drought on agriculture in 2007 was well over $600 million and will probably be close to $1 billion when the final numbers come in.

Dr. Ryan Boyles, the state climatologist and director of the State Climate Office at North Carolina State University, said the state would need 22 inches to 30 inches over the next six months to make a substantial drought recovery. That’s at least 2 inches above normal at a time when weather patterns show a high likelihood of below-normal precipitation through winter and spring.

Every county in the state has been in worrisome drought conditions for months. This week, 65 counties are in exceptional drought, the highest classification; 23 are in extreme drought; and 12 are in severe drought. Watauga and Avery counties, along with Wilkes, Yancey and Mitchell, are in the exceptional drought classification. Ashe and Alleghany counties are in the extreme drought classification.

According to Boyles, the State Climate Office assesses the drought status and drought impact indicators of all 100 counties every week, taking a number of factors into consideration, including precipitation, streamflows, groundwater and agricultural impacts. The data comes from a variety of sources. “Anyone who has a stake in the drought contributes information,” Boyles said.

The term exceptional drought—the most severe classification—sounds bad, but what does it mean? According to Boyles, the term reflects the historic probability of a similar drought situation occurring. In exceptional drought, there is a less than 2 percent probability of it happening in any given year. Think about that for a moment: less than 2 percent.

It’s no wonder that the people who oversee public water systems and those who monitor groundwater are worried.

This first installment of High Country Press’s three-week water series examines water from a variety of angles: worldwide water facts, everyday use, dripping faucet waste, streamflows in the Watauga and New rivers, the impact of precipitation and the importance of the water interconnection agreement that the Town of Boone and Appalachian State University recently signed.