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CNN Sunday Morning

Drought Problems Looming

Aired March 24, 2002 - 10:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we're going to talk about the real costs of the prolonged drought. It could cost you your job, believe it or not. The government's drought monitor shows severe to extreme drought from Georgia all the way to Maine.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: For example, New York City's watershed is way below normal and water use restrictions are looming there. CNN's Allen Dodds Franks illustrates the problem.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN DODDS FRANK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In the Catskill Mountains of New York, barely a sprinkling of snow on the mountain tops. Along the forest floor, not a hint of snow. There is little runoff of melting snow or rain to fill the Ashokan Reservoir (ph), one of New York City's main sources for the 1.1 billion gallons of water it uses daily.

JOE MIELE, NEW YORK DEPT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: There is zero chance of our refilling our reservoirs by June 1st of this year, which is the measure of whether we're in a drought emergency or not.

DODDS FRANK: Why is a drought emergency almost a certainty? Normally where I'm standing would be under more than 20 feet of water and this reservoir would have 120 billion gallons in it. Right now it has fewer than 50 billion gallons.

The lack of precipitation is hurting more than a dozen Eastern states. And the drought is worse than last year, when lack of water costs fruit growers and other farmers and nurseries more than $1.5 billion, just in New York and New Jersey. Some commercial operations, such As the Visy Paper Plant on Staten Island, could face 15% cutbacks on water usage. The company uses 1 million gallons of water a day as it converts recycled paper into brown paper for cardboard.

The 5-year-old plant produces more than 800 tons of paper daily, but to reduce water usage by 15% would require millions of dollars in new equipment and months to install it.

DARYL WHITEHEAD, GEN. MGR. VISY PAPER: We would be hoping to get some sort of dispensation from the city because if we stopped taking water in from the city, that means we can't take the city's waste paper. Therefore, 160,000 tons of that would end up going to landfill. That's a problem not only for us, but also for the city of New York.

DODDS FRANK: Rain along the east coast this week will hardly alleviate the drought. New York City's reservoirs, for instance, need two good hurricanes, that's 10 inches of rain or more, to approach normal levels.

Allen Dodds Frank, CNN Financial News," Ashokan, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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