ATLANTA, Feb. 7, 2002 -- A continuing rainfall deficit in Georgia's Flint River Basin likely will result in a severe drought declaration for that region, according to Harold Reheis, director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD).
The EPD director has authority to issue the declaration, which would trigger the Flint River Drought Protection Act for the second consecutive year. It is a state law passed in 2000 to keep the river from dropping to dangerously low levels.
"We are collecting data on weather trends, stream flow and groundwater levels," said Reheis. "A decision on whether to issue a severe drought declaration will be based on that information."
The Act established a fund to compensate farmers in the Lower Flint River Basin who voluntarily stop irrigating their crops with surface water during a severe drought year. The Act applies only to surface water irrigation and does not apply to groundwater wells, because EPD has not fully determined the impact of groundwater irrigation on the Lower Flint River.
A formal drought declaration clears the way for an auction, in which farmers submit bids on the acreage to be removed from irrigation. Only those farmers who are permitted surface-water agricultural irrigators in the Lower Flint River Basin and are using streams that flow year round-perennial streams-as their water source, are eligible to participate in the auction process.
The first auction was held on March 17, 2001 and as a result, more than 33,000 acres of Lower Flint River Basin farmland were not irrigated last summer. It's estimated that the voluntary halt to irrigation saved as much as 130 million gallons of water per day. In return, farmers were paid a total of $4.5 million.
"The Flint River Drought Protection Act was designed to maintain the health of the river, without jeopardizing the farm economy," said Reheis.
Scientists and engineers from Georgia EPD will monitor the drought situation using information gathered from state geologists and climatologists. If a severe drought is determined to exist, the Act requires that a formal declaration be made on or before March 1 of that particular calendar year.
Streamflows at five key measuring stations in the Flint River Basin are at or below 10-year drought levels, Reheis said. A 10-year drought is a drought that would be expected to occur every 10 years during a normal weather cycle.
Groundwater levels in most of the EPD monitoring wells are equal to or less than the levels of one year ago. "The Floridan Aquifer in southwest Georgia has simply not recovered from four consecutive dry years," Reheis said.
However, Reheis emphasized that if the region gets significant rainfall during the month of February, a severe drought declaration may not be necessary.
