Local water use restrictions remain in effect
By Nolan Page, Rhode Island Current
Recent rainfall hasn’t been enough to pull Rhode Island out of its drought watch, and the July heat hasn’t worsened conditions enough to warrant the next stage of drought monitoring, the state’s Drought Steering Committee determined Tuesday morning.
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Gov. Dan McKee announced the state’s first drought watch since 2002 on June 25. More severe than an advisory, a drought watch is the second of four designations in the state’s drought plan, followed by a warning and an emergency. The stages are issued based on the committee’s recommendation, drawing from three major indicators of drought: precipitation, groundwater and stream flow.
Meredith Brady, the committee’s chair, opened Tuesday’s meeting by saying they were “likely not to make a change one way or the other this month.” But while the stage of the drought didn’t shift in the past month, its conditions did.
Presentations from the U.S. Geological Survey and National Weather Service revealed a common theme: Recent rains haven’t reversed the trend of below-average levels of precipitation, groundwater and stream flow. Presenters from the organizations added that it took months to get into the drought, and it will take months to get out of it.
State Rep. Teresa Tanzi, a South Kingstown Democrat, represents two towns in Washington County hit particularly hard by this summer’s drought conditions.
“We’re trying to contextualize this so that we can express to the public how dire the situation is,” Tanzi said.
Veolia North America, which supplies water to Narragansett and South Kingstown, issued an outdoor water use ban beginning June 30, following below-average water levels in community wells.
“We’re not in good shape,” Christopher Jacobs, Veolia’s Rhode Island operations director, said Tuesday.
Upgrading the current watch to a warning requires at least six months of continually below-average precipitation. It also requires another two months of below-normal stream flow and groundwater levels — up from four to five months — and record monthly lows in well supplies.
Despite parts of the state meeting some of the criteria to upgrade to a drought warning, the committee did not find enough data to advance to that next stage. But Brady, its chair, said that doesn’t mean the issue is going away.
“People see the rain and they think, ‘Oh, we’re all set,’ and don’t realize just how urgent and critical this issue still is for the whole state,” Brady said.
The committee will reassess drought conditions next month, with a tentative meeting scheduled for Aug. 18.
Nancy Lavin contributed to this report.
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