Drought hammers lawns, crops, rivers in Minnesota

Jul. 25—To their arsenal of lawn-care products, homeowners must now add something new — calendars.

The worst drought in nine years is drying up Minnesota, and the result is calendar-based watering bans that are rolling out city-by-city across the Twin Cities.

It's one response to the drought that is worrying the water-watchers at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

The DNR declared Thursday that 72 percent of the state was baking in the "severe drought" category, and put the entire state under the "Drought Warning" phase.

That comes as farmers' crops wither, golf courses have had their water turned off, and the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers are flirting with all-time lows.

WATERING BANS

Randall Doneen, the DNR's manager of conservation assistance and regulations, said that as bad as it is, this drought is not a record. The record-breaker happened in 2012.

But this drought still has the potential to get worse, Doneen said. Forecasts for the coming week show temperatures in the 90s, with only slight chances of rain.

The DNR has given warnings to cities that get drinking water from the Mississippi — including Minneapolis, St. Paul and many suburbs. The river's levels are dropping so much that the DNR asked the cities to slash their monthly consumption to 50 percent more than their January lows.

St. Paul responded with a watering ban for half of the days on the calendar — its first watering ban in decades.

St. Paul followed the schedule adopted by other cities: watering at even-numbered addresses on even-numbered days, and at odd addresses on odd days. Even on the proper days, the watering hours are restricted to hours that vary widely. They range from a 10-hour window in Lake Elmo to a 19-hour period in Woodbury.

Some cities are planning for the next phase. Woodbury officials said that if the drought gets worse, it will switch watering restrictions to the "Trash Day plus one" plan — allowing watering on garbage pick-up days, and one other day every week.

The DNR's Doneen said that to preserve water in rivers, the agency yanked 50 permits to pump surface water. These include permits to water farmers' fields, golf courses and gravel mines. They do not affect any homes or businesses with well water.

FARMERS WAIT FOR RAIN

The state's farmers have noticed that the drought is spotty.

"There are certainly pockets that have gotten left off in terms of some of the rainfall," said Jared Goplen, an educator with the University of Minnesota Extension service.

Rick Schlichting's nearly 6,600-acre farm north of St. Cloud raises corn, kidney beans, potatoes, sweet peas and rye. Most of their crops are irrigated, which doesn't necessarily protect them, according to daughter Jocelyn Schlichting.

"Both of my grandpas confirmed this was the worst drought we've had since 1988," she said.

John Jacobson, owner of the Pine Tree Apple Orchard in White Bear Lake, has noticed that his apples and strawberries are smaller this year.

"My brother always says, 'We plan, and Mother Nature laughs,' " he said.

Jacobson installed a trickle-irrigation system. "We're trying to reduce as much of that risk that Mother Nature can throw at us as possible," he said.

Angela Guentzel, a corn and soybean farmer in Mankato, said she's been lucky to get just enough rainfall to produce a healthy crop.

"We still need some late-season rains to get this crop to produce a good value," she said.

'LOW AND SLOW'

Across the state, rivers are shrinking.

The west section of Gooseberry Falls — a tourist attraction near Two Harbors — has stopped flowing completely. Near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, social media postings show a tributary stream looking like a dried-out trench. On Thursday, the St. Croix River level at Stillwater sank to 12 feet below flood stage.

Even the mighty Mississippi is limping along. In St. Paul, it dropped to the fourth-lowest level ever seen for this time of year.

"The Mississippi is low and slow," said Tim Kennedy, owner of the Hidden Harbor Marina in St. Paul Park.

He has watched for weeks as glum boat owners drift in with busted propellers and mud-choked engines. The river levels are so low that boats run aground in shallow water, and crunch into underwater rocks and sandbars.

Kennedy is swamped with repair work.

"I have six guys in my shop, and we can't keep up," he said.

The DNR says that three inches of rain over a two-week period is needed to end the drought — and nothing like that is in the weather forecast. For the coming week in the metro area, expect highs in the 90s under skies that are partly cloudy, squeezing out only a little bit of rain.

In other words, the drought of 2021 looks to be getting worse.