MEADVILLE — When it comes to recent rainfall, the Greater Meadville Area shares a common bond with other parts of Pennsylvania as well as the United States as a whole.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, for example, recently reported that rainfall recorded during the past 90 days is as much as 5.5 inches below normal in Beaver County and 4.9 inches below normal in Lawrence and Mercer counties. Based on readings taken by Meadville Area Water Authority at its Rogers Ferry Road facility, rainfall for April, May and June was 4.9 inches below average for the past seven years.

DEP has put a drought watch into effect for 15 western Pennsylvania counties — including Crawford — calling for a voluntary 5 percent reduction in nonessential water use and putting large water consumers on notice to begin planning for the possibility of reduced water supplies.

However, the time for local panic probably hasn’t quite arrived.



Walking the farms

As erosion and sediment control specialist for Crawford Conservation District, Maria Dreese spends a fair amount of time walking through county fields and talking to local producers.

“This is a crucial time of year for us to get some showers,” Dreese said Friday, “but so far so good.”

Brief showers passing over the area “here and there” in recent days have been sufficient to at least get us through, Dreese said. However, even though local corn has gotten enough moisture to start to tassle up, she’s a bit concerned that if real rain doesn’t come pretty soon, we’re going to see some stressed corn in the county. Because the corn cob itself needs a lot of water, the plant’s water demand skyrockets as soon as the corn starts to put on ears.

“In the middle of the week, I was in the western part of Crawford County and didn’t see drought-stressed corn,” she said Friday. “This morning, I talked to a farmer in the Cochranton area who said the soybean fields are actually muddy. That’s a good sign.”

The same farmer also reported seeing no spiked corn — a condition that occurs when the corn leaves roll and look very pointed in response to extreme heat and little moisture. Even though recovery from spiking is possible once the temperature goes down and rain arrives, “If it happens repeatedly, you’ll see a loss in yield,” Dreese said.

As for the immediate future, “There’s no need for panic in Crawford County — not yet,” she said. In fact, she added, local farmers are actually looking forward to a profitable year because prices are expected to rise dramatically as a result of drought conditions in other parts of the country.



Local water supply

Don Nold, project manager for Meadville Area Water Authority, isn’t in panic mode, either. Not even close.

Municipal water supplies come from a variety of sources — and some are more vulnerable to short-term fluctuations in rainfall than others. Water suppliers collect their water in reservoirs while others draw it out of rivers, streams and lakes. Or, like MAWA, they pump their water from wells.

While DEP issues its drought watches and warnings in response to general conditions spread over a large area, MAWA, which draws its water from wells tapping into what Nold describes as “an unnamed, unconfined sand and gravel aquifer,” is required to develop and maintain its own drought contingency plan based on how far down they have to go in each well to hit water.

For example, MAWA is required to institute a stage 1 drought watch, asking customers to cut back daily water usage by 5 percent, whenever they have to go more than 31 feet deep in one particular well to find water. Friday, according to Nold, that well was pumping water from a depth of only 20 feet down — a full 11 feet above the watch stage.

Putting things into perspective, Nold explained that MAWA currently pulls 2 million gallons of water out from an aquifer that has repeatedly proved itself capable of producing a whole lot more. Back in the day, for example, residential and commercial customers within the city itself were using about 7 million gallons per day while a nearby manufacturer in Vernon Township pulled an additional 13 to 14 million gallons from the same aquifer to produce enough rayon yarn on a daily basis to encircle the Earth 134 times. “They were pulling out 22 million gallons per day,” Nold said. “Now we’re pulling out two.”

As for conservation measures, it doesn’t take much to cut back by three to five gallons per person, Nold added. “You can use 100 gallons in a single day watering a small yard,” he said. “It doesn’t take long.”

Assistant City Manager Andy Walker, who also serves as the City of Meadville’s stormwater management czar, agrees that cutting back on lawn watering might be a good first step — especially if water is running off the lawn, across the sidewalk and into the street, flowing into the city’s stormwater system and eventually into French Creek.

“A lot of our water goes into French Creek, not out of it,” Nold agreed.

“From a water-use perspective, overwatering lawns and sending water into the city’s stormwater system isn’t the best use of the area’s natural resources under any circumstances,” Walker said Friday, noting that special care should be taken when watering lawns recently treated with fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides.

“Property owners should be mindful that that water flowing into the city’s stormwater system goes, untreated, directly into French Creek or its tributaries,” Walker said.



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by email at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.