East Coast scrapes for water as winter drought drags on

From Georgia to Maine, eastern states are worried about a rare winter drought that has dried up reservoirs and forced conservation in a season when water is usually plentiful.

Cities have had to seek out alternate water sources and institute mandatory water-saving measures as a result of the low water levels. States have issued drought warnings to dozens of counties in the mid-Atlantic and Southeast.

Sparse rainfall since last spring and paltry snowfall this winter are to blame. The jet stream that directs cold air and precipitation to the Northeast in winter has remained farther north than usual, keeping the snowfall above the Great Lakes. The lack of normal precipitation has depleted groundwater, rivers and lakes.

''We're going to need significant precipitation over the next couple months to recharge reservoir and groundwater supply,'' says Peter Gabrielsen, a hydrologist with the eastern region of the National Weather Service. ''Our concern is (that) as we go into spring and summer . . . we're going to be behind the curve.''

Other parts of the country are also in trouble. Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are experiencing severe to extreme drought. So are parts of Oklahoma, New Mexico and West Texas. Most of the dry areas in those states are sparsely populated, but the drought in the densely populated East is affecting tens of millions of people. Among the impacts:

* Reservoirs serving Baltimore would normally be at 84% of their capacity now. Instead, they're at 58% capacity, the lowest they've ever been at this time of year. The record low, 55%, came at the end of summer during the drought of 1999. The city has had to start drawing water from the Susquehanna River.

* In Maine, 2001 was ''the driest year in the last 107 years, the length of the record,'' says Dana Murch, a member of the state's drought task force. In a state where many homes get all their water from private wells, more than 700 wells have dried up. The wait for a contractor to dig a new well is two to three months.

* At Mount Snow, a ski resort in Vermont, the lack of natural snow prompted the resort to make its own. But the water shortage forced snowmakers to ''be pretty strategic'' about where they were blowing it, a resort spokesman says. The resort was forced to delay the opening of part of the ski area as a result.

* New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have each issued drought warnings or drought watches, which request water conservation, to dozens of counties. A drought emergency was declared in December in the 14,000-square-mile area drained by the Delaware River. The declaration allows water to be drawn from private reservoirs to keep the river's levels up.

* In North and South Carolina, residents have been suffering through an on-again, off-again drought since mid-1998. This winter, despite some snow and rain, the drought is on again.

Dry weather in South Carolina over the past 3 years has left the state's rainfall total 30 to 40 inches below normal for the period.

''Our lakes, our streams, our reservoirs are at record lows,'' says Hope Mizzell, the state's drought response program coordinator. As of Tuesday, she said, nearly half the streams monitored by water officials had lower levels of water in them than ever recorded.

In North Carolina, the heavily populated midsection of the state is getting pitifully small amounts of rain this winter. The shortage has prompted 25 water systems to ask their customers to conserve.

In addition, there is a severe drought in the Roanoke River basin, which covers part of the state and neighboring Virginia. Lake levels are so low that hydroelectric production has been cut.

A long-term forecast issued by the National Weather Service in mid-January offers some hope. Many eastern states are expected to get some relief in the form of snow or rain in the next few months. The situation is dire, however, for Georgia and southern South Carolina, which can expert more of the same: less rain than normal through April, if not longer.

The author is Traci Watson. For more news from USA Today, click here.