Photographs by Jay Janner
Story by Brenda Bell
Austin American-Statesman staff
The meanest drought in modern Texas history looks different out here, away from the cities.
There are no emerald swaths of St. Augustine lawns, no blooming shrubs, no misters cooling bar patrons as the sun goes down on another cloudless, 105-degree day. The disconnect between what rural Texans are experiencing and sheltered urbanites are seeing has never seemed greater.
Out here, the brutality of the drought is measured not in annoying water restrictions or water pipes bursting in the dessicated ground — all now commonplace in Texas cities and towns — but threatened livelihoods, and the waning of life itself.
Livestock and agricultural losses are already estimated at $5.2 billion, and expected to rise. Stock tanks have dried up, hungry cattle are being rushed to market, crops plowed under. Wildfires have torched more than 3.4 million acres; deer are abandoning their young; oak trees that have weathered many a hot summer are fading.
The state’s aquifers, which supply 60 percent of its water supply, are dropping, squeezed by development pressure and lack of rainfall. Some of the brightest jewels in the river system - the Blanco, the Pedernales, have slowed to a trickle. The Sabine, in normally lush East Texas, is at an all-time low.
The U.S. Drought Monitor map shows an angry red blotch covering almost all of Texas, denoting extreme to exceptional — the most severe — drought conditions. In the past 12 months, just 15 inches of rain have fallen, the driest such period on record. The average daily temperature in July (87.1 degrees) beat the old 1954 record, by nearly two degrees. August temperatures, currently averaging over 89 degrees, are on target to set a new record too.
These “phenomenally consistent” weather conditions are the result of a long-running La Nina weather pattern — the same set-up for the infamous 1950sdrought, says Mark Rose, meteorologist for the Lower Colorado River Authority. When it began in 1949, one of every two Texans was still living in rural areas; by the time it ended seven years later, Texas had become an urban state, most of its population unfamiliar with the yearning for a good, two-inch rain.
There is no better depiction of that earlier time and place than Elmer Kelton’s “The Time It Never Rained,” the story of an old rancher’s struggle against the unforgiving “drouth” (in the Texas vernacular) — a story that rang so true that many readers believed the main character was based on their own fathers.
“I hoped the novel would give urban people a better understanding of hazards the rancher and farmer face in trying to feed and clothe them,” Kelton wrote in his preface to the book. “The heaviest readership, however, was west of the Mississippi. In effect I found myself preaching to the choir.”
Kelton died in San Angelo in August, 2009, a few months before the last statewide drought ended.
As I have stated, my interests and passion lie in protecting and promoting the “small producers” in agriculture…if you browse my writings, you see that I have tried to communicate the major disadvantages “we little guys/gals” face in the current food production model(s). I advocate, vociferously for the family farm/ranch, eat local/buy local, farmers markets, etc, etc.
I have been engaged in healthy debate, in the comment sections, on a couple of websites, regarding my harsh remarks about the new book by Environmental Working Group (EWG) Meat Eaters Guide to Climate + Health.
The book is putting forth a “Theory” that the authors have surmised based on their interpretation of the data gathered.
To prove my point , I give you a “peer reviewed”, non biased study by the Animal Production & Health Section Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications International Atomic Energy Agency. (Boy, that's a mouthful!)
(article is based on the above referenced study)
…Until recently, some claimed the level of atmospheric methane was related to the number of ruminants in the world (mostly cows, sheep and goats). It seemed as though for each additional billion large ruminants (where 8 sheep = 1 large ruminant), atmospheric methane increased by 1 ppb (parts per billion). Between 1979 and 1999, methane concentrations increased by 10.8 ppb per year, and large ruminant numbers increased by about 8.7 billion per year….
…a recent report, by an organization that won the 2007 Nobel Peace prize, said “If methane emissions grow in direct proportion to increases in livestock numbers, then global livestock-related methane production is expected to increase by 60 percent up to 2030 (FAO 2003),” The slow increase in methane now raises questions about the accuracy of this prediction by Nobel laureates….