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Do Below Normal Stream Flows and Unusual Weather Pattern Portend Drought?

Just Like Sandy, State Unprepared- Water Supply Plan Decades Old

Where is the DEP Water Supply Master Plan Update?

Hit links below for data (Source USGS - h/t Todd Bates

Todd Bates of the Asbury Park Press, posted some interesting data and maps on his “EnviroGuy” blog:

New Jersey’s dry spell has led to below-normal stream flows in most of the state, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

In part of North Jersey, stream flows are equivalent to what happens during a moderate drought, according to a USGS map.

And it looks like it will remain dry through Monday, at least in Neptune, according to the National Weather Service.

Check out these maps:

[Note: the DEP drought monitoring indices rate stream flow and groundwater as “extremely dry” – but curiously, the declared drought status is “normal”]

The stream flow data reflects an unusual weather pattern, written about by Stephen Stirling the “Weather Guy” at NJ.com – This is the same “blocking pattern” that brought Superstorm Sandy, another example of extreme weather:

see:  Same type of weather pattern that brought N.J. Sandy will produce beautiful conditions across state this week

A blocking weather pattern has set itself up over the continental United States and New Jersey is in the sweet spot. A blocking weather pattern centers around a ridge of high pressure that locks itself in place, slowing and redirecting the typical train of storm systems across the country.

Some scientists  – including at NOAA – suggest that the unusual “blocking pattern” is linked to climate change and related to melting of arctic sea ice and is another driver of “extreme weather”.

If that “blocking pattern” lasts for awhile, NJ could be slipping into an early drought cycle – a spring drought would create deficits going into a potentially dangerous dry summer, more of NJ’s cycle of “lurching from drought to flood”.

If an extended dry period were to occur, NJ is unprepared for drought.

The legally mandated update of the Water Supply Master Plan is many years over-due and nowhere in sight. DEP has been promising to update the plan for years, with no action and no accountability for lack of action.

Curiously, the public members of NJ’s Water Supply Advisory Council are totally silent in calling for DEP to act, a disturbing sign of abdication of their public responsibility .

As we wrote, these are highly significant issues for NJ:

Since the last Plan Update in 1996, there have been major changes on the ground that effect water supply management:

• water demand has soared due to population increase, more McMansion residential lawn watering, swimming pools, and golf course and agricultural irrigation;
• water supply has been reduced due to landscape changes, higher temperatures, less rainfall, less groundwater recharge, and higher pollution levels that eliminate summer river flows in the Passaic, Pompton, Hackensack, and Raritan rivers for water supply purposes;
• An aging infrastructure has gotten older and leakier – a multi-billion dollar infrastructure deficit has gone unfunded;
• over 300,000 acres of forests, wetlands, and farmlands have been lost to development, which significantly modifies the hydrological cycle;
• The ecological effects of diminished stream/river flows; loss of wetlands, riparian buffers, and vernal pools; and declining groundwater levels have become pronounced;
• The Highlands Master Plan process documented significant deficits in many watersheds;
• new science on water quality and unregulated pollutants has documented increasing public health and ecological risks; and
• global warming is increasing temperatures and changing rainfall, snowfall, and spring snowmelt patterns, thus altering fundamental hydrology and creating new demand and stressors.

So, if the dry pattern continues, will that wake DEP and the WSAC members up?

To issue that wake up call, we will repost some of the huge issues involved (don’t bother hitting the links to the outdated 1996 Water Supply Plan, DEP took down those documents to cover their tracks!)