KANSAS is getting dry.
It is not easy to tell around this part of the state — unless you’re a farmer. Steady applications of city water have kept most lawns green, and rain has appeared each time the soil has begun to crack and dry.
But the green grass just masks the problem. Underground, the soil has been drying out, stunting the crops that rely on deep roots to grow. Rivers are shrinking, as are the reservoirs they feed. Kanapolis, in central Kansas, is turning into a mud hole as the Smoky Hill River slows to a trickle. Other rivers are down, too.
In eastern Kansas, things look better, but only because reservoirs to the west continue to release water to keep the rivers up.
But the situation has gotten bad enough that this week, acting on the advice of the state’s Drought Response Team, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius expanded the drought warning already declared for 80 Kansas counties to the whole state. That declaration allows local governments to impose mandatory water-use restrictions and gives the state some authority to allocate water resources to meet emergencies.
Kansas is not alone. A drought expert at the University of Nebraska said that 60 percent of the nation is either extremely dry or in a drought. There are several methods for measuring drought, but the basic measurement used is how far a region has fallen behind normal average rainfall.
The Associated Press quoted a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist who said the current drought is the third worst on record — behind only the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s and the severe drought of the 1950s.
Speaking of the Dust Bowl, this summer has been the hottest one on record since those days.
The drought warning is not a declaration of an emergency. No disaster has occurred and no communities are in immediate danger of running out of water, although several communities have imposed some water-conservation measures.
But the nation is now in its eighth year of the current drought, and it would take a lot of rain to get the country back to normal.
Another dry fall and winter, and eastern Kansas could be looking pretty dusty come spring.
Patrick S. Kelley
Editorial Page Editor