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A few days into the Washington region’s historic heat wave, Katie Conaway, founder of Loudoun County’s View of Heaven Farm, checked a weather app on her phone and stared at the Blue Ridge Mountains. Thunderclouds lurked on a ridge near her 27-acre property, but didn’t seem ready to rain down relief on her withering raspberries and sunflowers.
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Still, after days of triple-digit temperatures, at least there was hope.
“You’re welcome to come back every day if you bring this,” she told a visitor. “I need an inch a week for my crops.”
Officials eye Potomac water levels for drought preparations
Conaway is one of many farmers around the Beltway waiting on a rainy day. Temperatures in the D.C. region have soared into the triple digits this month, breaking records for September during a season when the area is typically cooling. After a dry spring and early summer, the region has yet to catch up on its rainfall.
In some farm areas, meanwhile, streams are drying up, some crop yields are down by 40 percent, and livestock that would normally be grazing green pastures at this time of year are eating hay.
Last month, the Potomac River’s water levels dropped so low that the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments initiated drought operations, producing reports on weather, water demand and the river’s flow twice a day. In an email, spokesman Steve Kania said the agency’s drought coordination technical committee met Tuesday and decided not to move to its “drought watch” stage, partly because rain is expected in the coming days.
The committee will meet again to reassess the situation on Sept. 19, Kania said. Under a drought watch, there would be a regionwide call for voluntary water conservation, according to Kania. In the past, such measures have included discouraging watering lawns and washing cars.
Michael Nardolilli, executive director of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin — part of the committee — said in an email that agencies monitoring area water levels “will continue to urge residents and businesses in the DMV to use water wisely.”
Virginia’s Fauquier County has been especially hit hard. The federal government’s drought monitor marks the northern parts of the county as under “severe drought.” James Hilleary, Fauquier’s agriculture development officer, said the northern section of the county, is struggling. Streams are dry and pastures are parched, he said. Livestock producers have started feeding hay to animals, which is unusual at this time of year.
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After 20 years in the county, Hilleary has seen drought like this before. But it’s “been a long time,” he said.
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Farther north in the Potomac Basin, Katie Stevens, director of agriculture and small business services for Frederick County, Md., also grows cattle, hay, corn and cut flowers. In a county about 50 miles from the District where some areas are at “severe drought” status, she doesn’t like what she’s seen this summer.
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Growers in “agritourism” who offer products like sunflowers, Stevens said, are going to be completely shut down without rain. Farmers with irrigation systems will struggle to water acres upon acres of fields, while those without irrigation systems will simply have to go without.
Some crop yields are expected to be half of what they were last year, according to Stevens, and those who can’t find enough grass or hay to feed their cattle may have to sell them.
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“We can’t control the weather,” Stevens said. “We’re praying for rain … but it’s going to take more than a little bit of rain. We need some nice steady rain so it stays in the fields.”
Even those in relative safety are concerned. Stacey Carlberg, the co-owner of Fireside Farm in Loudoun County, said her vegetable farm has access to a good well even as the streams around her property dry up. The plants she’s putting in now for a fall harvest prefer cooler temperatures but, at least for now, she can irrigate.
“It’s worrisome. It seems like there isn’t much rain in the future,” she said. “If our well were to stop providing water — and there are neighboring farms with well houses dried up — that would be a catastrophe for us.”
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At Georges Mill Farm, also in Loudoun, Molly Kroiz raises goats and makes cheese. Though the farm has planted a variety of crops that are more drought-resistant than grass to feed her animals, she still relies on hay later in the year and is worried that prices may rise due to a drought-shortened supply.
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One dry year won’t kill the farm, Kroiz said, but it makes for an expensive winter and an uncertain future. This, Kroiz said, is a sign of climate change.
“We want people to know the effect climate has on farmers,” she said. “It’s not just you’re not able to mow your lawn. It has an effect on your food supply as well.”
Right now, it’s unclear whether rain is coming. Storms and lower temperatures are forecast for the coming week, but the fall is expected to be warm with uncertain amounts of precipitation.
At View of Heaven Farm, a cool wind started blowing not long after Conaway put away her smartphone. The sky darkened, and storm clouds moved off the mountain ridge. As lightning flashed, a hard rain fell for about 20 minutes while Conaway and her family took shelter in a hydroponic facility she built to grow food using less water.
After the storm, Conaway dug at the dirt alongside the path leading to her driveway. The grass was wet — but right below the surface, the dirt was dry.
“That was a lovely rain,” she said. “But it didn’t go down very far.”
Jason Samenow contributed to this report.
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