Photo: Gary Hershorn/Getty Images
New York City rarely goes through droughts so we figured you might have some questions about this current dry spell. Here’s everything you need to know:
A drought watch is the first step in the state’s early-warning system and is declared “when a drought is developing.” The city advises the public to begin voluntarily conserving water while city agencies begin preparing for “water savings plans.”
If you haven’t noticed from your desperately chapped lips, the New York City metro area hasn’t seen any significant rainfall since September 27. It didn’t rain the entire month of October, which usually sees an average of 4.5 inches of rain, making it the second-longest dry period since 1869.
If things stay this dry, the situation could be upgraded to a “drought warning” within weeks. Then it could become an emergency, then a disaster. Under an emergency, mandatory water restrictions could be imposed.
The Department of Environmental Protection has listed water-saving tips on their site like taking shorter showers and turning the faucet off when you’re shaving. Running an appliance like a dishwasher when it’s fully loaded is more efficient than doing dishes by hand. “When every New Yorker makes even small changes, like turning off the tap when washing hands, brushing teeth and doing dishes, we save millions of gallons by the minute,” Meera Joshi, the city’s deputy mayor for operations, told the New York Times. Aggarwala noted in the press conference that the biggest source of water waste in homes are leaking toilets, so you should check yours out if you can. (Which seems like good advice in general.)
“If we can cut our water consumption by only 5 percent today, every 20 days we do that, that buys us another day of full water supply later on,” Aggarwala said. But Andrew Kruczkiewicz, senior staff associate at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, also points out that the true efficacy of some of these water-saving tips will be a matter of policy, such as the DEP’s suggestion to install water-saving toilets. “The question I have is at what level of drought will the city have to financially support ways that will lead people to make these changes that they recommend?”
“Nobody needs to panic,” Aggarwala told The City. “But we really want New Yorkers to start being much more conscientious about how much water to consume on a daily basis and reduce wherever possible.” I asked Kruczkiewicz if he was worried. “Not yet,” he said.
In 2002, Mayor Bloomberg issued a drought emergency. Businesses had to cut their water usage by 15 percent, and certain actions were prohibited, like car washing and hosing down the sidewalks. People were only allowed to water their lawns for four hours every other day. (The hold of the lawn on American culture persists.) Waiters could serve tap water only upon request.
By now you’ve probably seen this incredible video from Mayor Koch’s “Keep New York Wet” campaign in the 1980s when he issued three drought emergencies. Drink (metaphorically, of course) every time a kid says “wudduh.”
It’s true that we’re experiencing an unprecedented period of dry weather, but as the saying goes: Weather is not climate. Still, as Bloomberg pointed out, climate change has already made a specific type of drought — flash droughts — more likely. “Whenever we’re talking about extreme events, we must ask about the link to climate change,” Kruczkiewicz said. (He emphasized, however, that not all “drought types will get worse due to climate change in all areas.”)
New York City’s drinking water comes from three main watershed systems located upstate. As The City reported, the DEP is currently repairing a long-time leak in one of them, the Delaware Aqueduct, which usually provides 90 percent of our water. We’re currently relying more on the Croton Watershed, which means we’re slightly more dependent on rainfall levels. Reservoir levels are now at two-thirds, when they’re usually at 75 percent this time of the year. As DEP Commissioner Aggarwala noted in a press conference, we’ll need six inches of rain to cover the deficit.
A drought won’t affect everyone equally. It’s not just drinking water availability — while one person might have to stop watering their lawn, a contractor whose business is to landscape that lawn might be out of work. Kruczkiewicz says even more than just having warning systems in place, “we need to focus on the disproportionality of impact” of droughts.
There have already been wildfires in New Jersey, Connecticut, and other areas in the Northeast. While it’s not something you think about happening in New York City, we still have parks and larger forested areas where fires can happen — in fact, Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island have already seen brush fires. “We would ask people not to throw cigarettes into anything that’s combustible, like leaves,” FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker told CBS. Maybe don’t throw your cigs into leaf piles even when it starts raining again, okay?
