The Plusses of Our Drought
Dan Onion, MD, MPH
Mt. Vernon/Vienna Health Officer
293-2076; dkonion@gmail.com
September, 2016
This year I’ve had to water my garden and berry bushes all summer. Second hay crops are substantially reduced. Many wells will probably dry up this fall unless we begin to get significant rain. Wild fires are a greater risk. Both Flying and Parker Ponds are nearly a foot below normal summer low water levels. Even Hermine is missing us!
Can one think positively about such deprivation? Yes, certainly in several ways.
First, we have less runoff from rainstorms going into our lakes and ponds. This reduces road washouts and the amount of phosphorous thereby washing into the water bodies. And, since normally phosphorous levels are the limiting ingredient to algae growth in our lakes, we’ve seen much less algal growth this year, no green globs in Flying Pond, very clear water, and almost no gloeotrichia cyanobacteria (http://belgradelakesassociation.org/Resources/WaterQuality/ Gloeotrichia.aspx) in Parker this year. It’s nice to have cleaner water, and fish get more oxygen to grow on. Unfortunately, some folks, prompted I presume by the receding shoreline, unknowingly worsened the problem of phosphate loading by dumping crushed rock far out into the lake at a private boat launch on Parker last week, despite it being against the law and bad for the lake.
Another big benefit of dry weather is fewer standing water puddles where mosquitoes can breed, hence fewer bites and zero cases of Eastern Equine Encephalitis or West Nile Virus in Maine animals or people! And hopefully southern Anopheles or Aedes aegypti mosquitoes never consider moving up here; we don’t need the many diseases they transmit in the South, like Zika virus, Dengue Fever, yellow fever and malaria.
And lawns need less mowing. It's all related to the huge changes induced by the clearly documented global warming, caused by the complete human take-over of the world. These last 2 years have been the hottest on record.
So enjoy the parts of the drought you can and pray your well doesn’t dry up. And take advantage of the dry year to create diversions for future storm water from your roads into the woods, not the lakes.