The Rural Voice, 1999-01, Page 8"Our experience
assures lower cost
water wells"
99 YEARS' EXPERIENCE
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Markdale 519-986-2507
4 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Now we know how fragile the climate is
Probably the best Christmas gift
our family received this year came
weeks before the big day: everyone
got to take a deep, hot bath — in our
own bathtub.
Like hundreds of people across
western Ontario our well fell victim
of the great
drought of 1998.
Ironically, we
made it through
the heat of
summer, the
time you usually
worry about a
water shortage.
In September
we were
rationing water,
aware there
might be a
problem. It was
early in
October, the
time of year you
can usually expect rain coming down
in buckets, that we finally ran out.
For a while we held out, thinking
fall's normal rainfall would come and
we might squeak through without the
major investment of a new well.
After all, there are only three people
and a few dozen quail to be served by
a well that gave water to a barnful of
livestock for gencrations. The rains
never came in any substantial
amount.
Eventually after weeks of hauling
drinking water home from town,
collecting rainwater in barrels to
flush the toilet (once a day) and
journeying 10 miles to our daughter's
home to have a shower, we faced
reality and called the well driller.
Yes, 1998 will certainly be a year
to remember. In some areas there
were no crops at all; in others 200 -
bushel yields for corn. The very hot
weather that made it a bonanza year
for those who got moisture,
exacerbated the situation for people
without rain.
Maybe this is a once-in-a-lifetime
experience, something to tell our
grandchildren about and maybe it
isn't. And will we know if we really
face a climate change? Whatever,
1998 shows just how complicated
weather is and how something we
might wish for, like the to -dream -of
heat units of this year, can have far
reaching implications.
For instance, the prospect of
global warming could seem
wonderful for crop producers in
southwestern Ontario. Sitting right
beside Lake Huron we take ample
rainfall for granted so if we had early
springs and late falls and plenty of
hcat in the summer we can envision
huge crops. Indeed, that's what some
people got. (Even on our farm whcrc
the well ran dry, crop yields were far
higher in 1998 than 1997.)
But climate is so fragile that for
some reason the water that evap-
orated as the winds passed over Lake
Huron, just stayed in the clouds until
it was farther inland than normal —
100 or so miles farther.
As this is written we've had an
entire year with below-average
moisture: no snow last fall, little rain
this spring, summer and fall.
But even after acme light rain this
fall all the moisture is in the top few
inches of topsoil. The soil far below
is dry as powder. One begins to
wonder if 1998 were to be repeated
this coming year and beyond, what
would happen to the trees that depend
on reserves of moisture far down in
the soil? Could we lose the trees that
shelter our crops and our homes,
provide a diversified income for
those with woodlots and make
Ontario a centre of the maple syrup
industry? And if we lost the trees,
how could our whole way of living
and farming be affected?
And then there are our rivers and
the fish. A whole generation of
migrating fish apparently were unable
to get up the rivers to spawn bccausc
of low water levels this fall. Imagine
that happening year after year.
If we ever doubted that climate
change is much more complicated
than just enjoying warmer weather,
1998 should cure us of that illusion.
Those few degrees of extra temp-
erature have the ability to change our
entire lives and cost us huge sums of
money. Maybe it's time, at last, to
take the issue seriously.0
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice. Ile
lives near Blyth. ON.