[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Journey Hometown Journal we're just kind.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Of hoping that with the snow that we have on the ground melting and, you know, rain coming this weekend, that that'll help alleviate a little bit of it. But there still hasn't been enough to really make a dent in some of our groundwater wells and some of our stream levels.
[00:00:18] Speaker C: Welcome to the Hometown Journal. I'm Mark Edwards. With all of the ice and snow we've had this winter, you're probably not thinking about the possibility of drought conditions in Virginia, but the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is thinking about and today we'll talk with Weedon Clow, manager in the Office of Water Supply with the State Department of Environmental Quality. The department recently sent out a drought warning advisory and we'll discuss what that means for you and your locality.
Well, Weedon, thank you so much for being with us today. We'll get into talking about this drought warning that the Department of Environmental Quality has sent out. But first of all, tell us a little bit about your background and then how that led you into the work that you're doing and working with the Department of Environmental Quality.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Thank you, Mark, and I appreciate you having me on today. I came to the to the agency almost three years ago after a 28 year career with Chesterfield county where I was involved in water quality work related to stormwater and Chesapeake Bay preservation.
I've always had a passion for water, studying it at William Mary with a biology degree and also at BCU in a freshwater biology master's program. It's been a great venue to work out of. It's very important work. And as I tell the folks that work on my team, this is work that's a very noble cause.
We're working hard to ensure that the resource that we have in both surface and groundwater are adequately and responsibly maintained. The Office of Water Supply, we have three major components within that office. We have our Water Supply Planning and Analysis program, which is the program that is responsible for ultimately making drought advisories through the Drought Monitoring Task Force. They're also involved in water supply planning in regional capacity throughout the state. Then I have a groundwater program out at our Glenn Allen office, our Piedmont Regional office, looking after the groundwater network of wells that we have that inform us of drought and also just general levels and supply. And also we have a team out in Charlottesville who does surface water measurements. They too have a network of about 88 gauges throughout the state that they operate in conjunction with the geological surveys.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: So let's talk a little bit about the drought warning advisory that has come out and I understand now that's been expanded to 39 counties in Virginia and 16 cities.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Yes, it has, Mark. Every other week since last June, we've been convening the Drought Monitoring Task Force. And the task force is made up of different water resource professionals across the board. We have folks from the U.S. geological Survey, we have folks from the National Weather Service.
We have folks from various state agencies such as the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, VA Department of Health, representatives from NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System.
We all meet every other week and we look at the numbers, we look at the precipitation, we look at stream flows, we look at groundwater well levels and we look at reservoir levels.
And we've been in some sort of drought advisory in the Commonwealth pretty much since last June.
The hopes being that in the fall and in the winter we get more precipitation and things improve. But this fall was dry and this winter has been unusually dry as well.
And we had issued advisories watch advisories through most of the middle portion of the of the state. But last meeting that we had on February 3, we ended up expanding our warnings to two additional areas. One of those areas was the Chowan Basin in the southern part of the state and then our northern Piedmont. This joined three other regions that were in a warning capacity, that being the Roanoke River Basin, the Shenandoah and the Northern Virginia. You know, we're just kind of hoping that with the snow that we have on the ground melting and rain coming this weekend, that that'll help alleviate a little bit of it. But there still hasn't been enough to really make a dent in some of our groundwater wells and some of our stream levels. So it's right now we're just waiting and hoping for more rain that is.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: Weed and clow with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. And he is sharing with us some of the specifics of the department's recent drought warning advisory for 39 counties and 16 C cities in Virginia. When we come back, we'll talk with Whedon about what the advisory means for you.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Looking for that sweet album art for some of your favorite songs? Want to know what music played recently or wanting to support the journey and help us share the hope of Christ? Maybe you just want to take the journey with you wherever you go. There's a simple way to do all of that and more. Download the MyJourney FM app today, wherever you get your apps. Now back to more of the journey.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Hometown Journal Mark Edwards, back with you today. Our guest is Weedon Clow with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality as we watch the snow melt from the recent winter storms. The Commonwealth is actually under a drought warning advisory and there are some things we should begin considering regarding water conservation.
Weedon, you mentioned earlier that the state has been under some type of water advisory since last June. Is that normal in the course of a one year time frame?
[00:06:10] Speaker B: I would say on a long term basis, no. But short term is something we've seen for the last two, three years.
Last year we had a very, very dry fall and a very dry winter as well. And if you remember about towards the end of the winter around March, we started getting rain and we had a real wet spring which kind of saved us from going into a further drought advisories. It kind of erased the deficit. But that deficit wasn't erased for long. It was maybe eight weeks before it started to pop back up and we started to see declines in mainly the northern part of the state.
So yeah, short term, short term it's normal, but long term it's unusual.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: When you look at Virginia, you've got populations more dense with the cities then you've got obviously your rural areas as well. So talk about what the, I guess the residents of Virginia, we'll get to the localities in a minute. But like what this means to the residents of Virginia, why it's important and what the they should look for.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Well, when we issue watches and warnings, these are mainly to raise awareness that the onset of a drought event is a significant drought event is imminent. You know, watches usually carry about a, you know, we ask for a 5% reduction in use of water warnings up to 10% reduction in use. And what this does is it informs localities that hey, you know, things are, things are dry, which they usually know already because the utility within these localities are usually having their own kind of trigger level for drought. You know, they're keeping looked at their reservoir levels. They're looking at, you know, the conditions in their general in whichever county or city they're in. But what we advocate for are things that the average citizen can do or resident such as, you know, maybe taking shorter showers, you know, waiting till your dishwasher is full, you know, before you run it, you know, check for leaks around the house, those kind of things.
In the summertime we add in things like water your lawns or gardens in the morning or the evening when it's not so hot and maybe cut down your car washing if you're washing at home. But those are things that residents can do. When you get into localities and you get into cities. They have their own water conservation plans, and those can differ from locality to locality, but oftentimes they involve, you know, maybe bans on excessive water use or, you know, keeping, like I said, keeping the car washing to a minimum. They may stop any type of watering of public grounds or turn off fountains, those kind of things. What we're trying to prevent is moving to a drought emergency, which is the third and final tier. And that is when it's a declaration of an emergency by the. By the governor's office. And that gets into seriousness when we're moving water around and lifting restrictions on trucking so that we can get water to places, because at this point in time, folks are absolutely. They're running out of water. This hasn't happened since 2002. And we really try to get the message out before that to, you know, hey, conservation is important, and let's hope we. We don't have to get there.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: Okay, you touched on this earlier, and that was the ice and snow that we've experienced. And now with warmer temperatures starting to melt, how much do you expect that that will alleviate the problem?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Probably not a lot, Mark. You know, we have a lot of snow here in Richmond, throughout the Commonwealth as well, you know, a few inches. But, you know, that really kind of just translates into liquid water to less than an inch of rain.
The good thing is it's melting slow, and that will irrigate the top layer of soil, which we've seen a lot of soil moisture loss here in the last few.
This will go a long way into replenishing the soil moisture. And hopefully with a little bit of rain on top of that, it'll punch through and be able to start to replenish the groundwater supply.
That's kind of what's driving a lot of these. A lot of these warnings and watches is that the groundwater supply is lower than it usually is, especially in the areas where warnings are in place, not to mention streams. The good news is all the reservoirs that we keep on our for the drought marine task force, we haven't had any problems with reservoir levels. The supply is fine. From a surface water perspective, it's more of a hydrologic drought, they call it is related to the natural environment of ground and surface waters.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: Are farmers, are they the first to be really impacted by the water drought conditions?
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. Maybe this time of the year, not so much because they don't have active crops in the pastures, but come spring and summer, if we don't see an increase in the availability of natural waters like surface and groundwaters that are used for irrigation and for crops, then, yes, they start getting impacted. We work closely with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, who interact with the farming community directly and they report out during our times, in our meetings on the task force as to what the farmers are seeing in the field.
Last year in the Shenandoah Valley, we were seeing some decreased yields and crops at the end of the summer, and I know some of the cattle farmers were feeding hay earlier on in the season than they usually do. But yes, agriculturally, it is impactful. We're very, very cognizant of that.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: That is Weed and Clow of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. And today we have been discussing the drought warning advisory the department issued. Again, that warning is for 39 counties and 16 cities across the commonwealth. To see the localities impacted and understand more about drought warning advisories, visit deq.virginia.gov I'm Mark Edwards. Thank you for joining us for the Hometown Journal.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: You've been listening to the Journey Hometown Journal. If you're a part of an organization or know of one in the communities we serve and would like to be considered as a guest, please make your
[email protected] email officeyjourneyfm.com or call 800-424-9594. The Hometown Journal is a presentation of the Journey.
