By Wally Kennedy
Globe Staff Writer
NEOSHO, Mo.- —
They were two key points that participants in Monday’s water summit at Crowder College kept hearing over and over.
The first: There will be less water per person in the future than there is now.
The second: Make plans now for a drought that is far worse than anything that has occurred in the historical record.
The summit, organized in cooperation with the Multi-Basin Regional Water Council, featured expert testimony before U.S. Reps. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; John Boozman, R-Ark.; and Dan Boren, D-Okla. This was Boren’s first appearance at meetings on the water issue. U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., could not attend. She was represented by a staff member.
Blunt, who organized the first water summit with former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., welcomed Boren to the congressional conference, noting that Northeast Oklahoma is part of the Ozarks region and that “water does not observe state lines.” He also welcomed Jenkins’ involvement.
“All four states are listening to each other and coming together,” Blunt said. “That is important because we must solve these problems together.”
Boozman said he, too, supports the regional concept “because the old days of doing it on your own are over.”
Economic focus
Previous water summits have focused on water quality. This summit focused on quantity and the potential impact of extreme water shortages on specific sectors of the economy, including agriculture, tourism and industry.
Summit participants got a taste of how bad things can get during a drought from Peter Taylor Jr., chief of staff of the Mobile (Ala.) District of the Army Corps of Engineers. Taylor shared his experience with the “water wars” that took place in connection with a devastating two-year drought that ended last year in the Southeast.
Taylor said the drought affected two river basins, the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa and the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint, and the states of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. The drought forced the public to adopt mandatory water conservation measures.
Taylor said billions of dollars were lost from the economy of the Southeast, particularly in the Atlanta area, as the drought affected tourism, agriculture and industry. Dozens of businesses were forced to close.
He said the public outcry from the drought was intense and precipitated a flurry of lawsuits, including one against the Army Corps of Engineers for its management of water resources in that region.
“You need to have a plan to address a drought, and you need to learn to live with less water in the future,” Taylor said.
Blunt used Taylor’s remarks to emphasize the importance of collaboration among the states before such an event occurs. He said the water summits that have been held have strengthened relationships among people in the region who might be called upon in the future to mitigate the effects of drought.
Tree rings
Taylor’s comments came after a report by Malcolm Cleaveland, a professor at the University of Arkansas, who said the drought in the Southeast is nothing like some of the mega droughts that have occurred in the past in various regions of the country.
Cleaveland said an analysis of tree rings in the United States shows that some droughts have lasted from 15 to 35 years. The severe drought of the early 1950s, he said, is viewed as an extreme episode. But in reality, he said, that type of drought occurs more frequently than one might think.
Cleaveland said the historical evidence suggests that the world should be heading into a glacial era in which the planet cools. “That trend changed at the beginning of the 20th century,” he said. “It’s warming now.”
Tracy Streeter, director of the Kansas Water Office, said a moratorium in Southeast Kansas on water being drawn via new wells into the Ozark Aquifer could be lifted in the near future. Studies have shown that groundwater supplies are declining, but that a sufficient supply exists to approve some new allocations from the aquifer.
Poultry industry
Marvin Childers, with the Poultry Federation of Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, said the industry has instituted significant conservation efforts. In 1988, it took 12 gallons of water to process one chicken. That has been cut in half to six gallons. In all, the industry has reduced its need for water by 25 percent in the past seven years, he said.
But a processing plant still uses up to a million gallons of water a day to process between 200,000 and 250,000 birds, he said.
Participants in the summit noted that many of the towns in the region with water issues have poultry processing plants. Among them are Carthage, Noel and Monett.
John Twitty, general manager of City Utilities in Springfield, predicted that there will be less water per person in the future than there is now because of population growth. He said every water utility in the region should be making plans now to conserve water in the event of a drought.
Dwayne Miller, a Goodman resident who has been active in local water issues, said he was hoping to hear more information on water quality than quantity during Monday’s summit. He said the growth of agriculture, particularly the poultry industry, has put a burden on water resources in Southwest Missouri.
He said the poultry industry makes billions of dollars a year in profit, but those profits do not reflect how the industry uses the environment to subsidize the cost of doing business.
Earl Hatley, a water activist in Northeast Oklahoma, said the region is benefiting from “the highest up cycle we have ever seen when it comes to how much water we have. But what will the next down cycle look like? When will it happen, and how long will it last?
“When it gets this high, you can bet it will get equally as low.”
Breakout sessions
After Monday’s presentations by 10 speakers, participants attended breakout sessions on the subjects of municipalities, agriculture and environment. Two proposed sessions on industry and recreation did not attract sufficient interest.
