As Drought Grinds On In N. Carolina, Wells Beginning To Dry Up Statewide

[hatrack]

EDIT

Mike Floyd, president of Charlotte-based McCall Brothers, one of the state's biggest well drillers, said he's gotten about 20 percent more calls in the past couple of months than usual. His company began drilling a new, deeper well Wednesday for Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church near Wake Forest. The church's roughly 200 members have had to buy bottled drinking water and limit their use of the bathrooms during Sunday services the past three weeks, said George Henry, a trustee of the church.

Besides replacement wells, many customers have also been requesting irrigation wells for lawns or golf courses, Floyd said. They may already draw water from a municipal source, but don't want to have to pay the rates or comply with the watering restrictions, he said. Wake County has issued about 57 permits for irrigation wells this year. In Johnston County, meanwhile, requests for permits to tap into county water lines hit 69 this month, more than double the monthly average. "You can see the jump," said Marie Carcione, an accounting technician in public utilities. "This is definitely new."

Parts of the Triangle have fared better than others. Rainfall, which replenishes groundwater, has been about 5 inches below normal for the year-to-date at Raleigh-Durham International airport. But surrounding areas, including most of Johnston and Orange counties, have had far less -- 12 to 16 inches less than normal so far this year.

In Wake County, where roughly a fifth of residents are on wells, drillers say many shallow wells were replaced in 2002, the worst drought year in recent history. Most newer wells, called drilled wells, can weather a drought because they reach between 200 and 600 feet deep into bedrock fractures. Yet shallower wells, called bored wells -- which draw water from layers of soil, clay and loose rock above bedrock -- remain common especially in rural Eastern North Carolina. At about $1,500, bored wells are cheaper to construct than deeper drilled wells, which cost about $4,500, Floyd said. And layers of soil get thicker as you move towards the coast.

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http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/686866.html

[villager]

1. Lawns? Golf courses?

Those will be among the first to go, when the new realities finally hit home...

[Uben]

2. You can handle it

We had a two year drought here the past two years. We were classified as "severe", and it was! This year brought record rainfall, our lakes are all full again, the grass is green at the end of August. It was a long wait, but we made it through. You can, too. Prayin don't hurt!

[kestrel91316]

3. ".....requesting irrigation wells for lawns or golf courses....."

Somebody needs to be the responsible adult here and JUST SAY NO.

[Nihil]

5. Yeah right ...

Don't you realise that if you're rich, you don't need to be responsible?

Those folk can afford to drill a new well to water their f*cking useless
grass so that automatically gives them the right to do so ...

What's more, the fact that they've put some of their own money into it
means that they can scream louder when demanding compensation when the
aquifer dries up and to hell with the poor folk who are going thirsty.

:grr:

[CRF450]

4. Doesn't surprise me at all

I clean pools and spa's at the Outerbanks, and one of the houses I go to was low on well water for a week and a half in late July. I dont know if it had its own system or not becuase all the other houses I go to with a well water spicket was working just fine.

[depakid]

6. What is it about airports?

5 inches below normal for the year-to-date at Raleigh-Durham International airport. But surrounding areas, including most of Johnston and Orange counties, have had far less -- 12 to 16 inches less than normal so far this year.

Seems to me that just about everywhere I've lived in the states, there's a major discrepancy between the amount of precipitation that falls at airports- and the amount that people (even nearby) see in their rain gauges.

Ever noticed that?

:shrug: