"Drought" in upstate NY

[KWRB]

So despite living in Oswego County, darn near Lake Ontario almost my entire life, this is the first time I can recall being told we have a "drought". I'm not very agricultural, so I was wondering if anyone knew what the long term precipitation forecast is like for August and September, if such a thing can even really be predicted. Is the almanac real? Can I look in there? I get a feeling it isn't too good for things like weather, but I've been wrong before.

My well ran dry today. There is a drilled well on the property I've never used, that isn't plumbed to the house. I was thinking about dropping a submersible in there and pumping into the dug well that is plumbed into the house. It's not ideal, but it would be a short term solution if it's only needed every few days or so until some rain shows up. In fact, I wonder if that is why the previous owners drilled the well in the first place. Seems silly to drill a well and not use it.

I'm a little panicked, to be honest. Even as a child, we've never, ever had water issues, and I have no clue how to handle this.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

You wouldn't use it if it never produced acceptable result? Not enough flow, methane, salty?

A poly water tank might be a temporary solution and haul in potable water. Is your pump in the well?
FYI much of the rest of the country will have no experience with dug wells.

 

[fishheadbob]

You wouldn't use it if it never produced acceptable result? Not enough flow, methane, salty?

A poly water tank might be a temporary solution and haul in potable water. Is your pump in the well?
FYI much of the rest of the country will have no experience with dug wells.

6 wells and holding...
I would agree. Nobody would spend the money to drill a well but not pump it out unless preliminary testing showed a problem of some sort. Low recovery, sulphur, E. Coli, whatever.
Dug wells are relics of the past as they aren't very deep and get extremely problematic in the drought conditions we are experiencing. I'm 5 or 6 miles from Lake Erie and can watch my crop withering away.
Besides peeing outside - great water conservation- there are steps you can take to replenish the little water you have available. You could buy a poly tank and haul a few hundred gallons at a time from grandma's city water supply. This assumes you have a pickup or trailer, some spare cash, and the time. You could call your local water hauler and he'll deliver a thousand gallons for a few hundred bucks. You can find a water hauler by checking out the local Pennysaver/advertiser. Those guys know when they are needed. Usually the water haulers are also the farm to processor milk truckers looking to make a few extra dollars on the tanker they already have, so I would look around there. Even if whoever you contact doesn't do it, they should have leads on who does.
Almanacs that predict the future are fortune tellers, so if you put a lot of faith in fortune tellers see what they have to say.
When it does resume raining as it will someday, one or two good storms aren't going to miraculously make your well produce. The ground is dust to a depth of over a foot. It will take time to recover from the longest and driest period I've experienced; including 2 years of well below average snowfall.
You may have to consider the considerable expense of drilling a new well someday. I suppose well drillers in our region are backlogged at present.

 

[tcartwri]

How close is your nearest neighbor.

When I had well pump problems a few years ago, we just ran garden hoses from house to house to the exterior faucets. You'll need a female female adapter for one end, I used the feed hose for the washing machine.

Very temporary solution though.

 

[Clint S]

It is the worst I have seen it in many many years. I have seen it drier with lower pond and lake levels, but never for this length of time. It's been 6 plus months. This weekend was the tipping point when we did not receive the rain we were supposed to get and we are in for another week of 90s with no rain. Crops are suffering. I still do not have a red tomato yet even with watering. All we can hope for is it breaks soon.

 

[radioman]

its bad here. my garden is awful - . i never given up on my garden before. everything is dry- i recently buried in new invisable fence wire and its showing the line now, dirt is crack at the seams and grass dying. normally it would have healed on its own by now. im less then 5 miles from lake ontario shore and its not helping.
I remember we had a drought less then 10 years ago, but we recovered after month and half. this is the longest we have gone and there is still no relief in sight. for the first time ever, i am afraid of flooding. this area is known for its clay like soil and its parched and dried like cement.

i thank my lucky stars im connected via city water lines, but my septic leach field is showing its uglyness now. i can see exactly where the tank is, i can see where the lines are now as its all dead and brown grass. the rest of yard is greenish meaning the roots are deeper there . i have not seen a single local grown crop veggie stands around here either.

 

[MF283]

I can remember years like that in the past. When we were on well water, the drought years were hard, ours is only 65' deep & has some of the best water i've ever drank. At the time, there were only 2 other houses on our dead end road, their wells were 250' deep with black sulphur.
Since we have had city water for a number of years, the well hasn't been used, i've been thinking about trying to run it again to see if it still exist
It looks like we'll be seeing 3rd cuttings of hay around these part's this year & if the crop farmers are lucky, it will dry out enough to get the crops out of the fields.
Drought is a terrible thing, it can take a few years to get everything back on track, i hope it ends soon for you..

Ronnie

 

[CobyRupert]

How close is your nearest neighbor.

When I had well pump problems a few years ago, we just ran garden hoses from house to house to the exterior faucets.

Very temporary solution though.

Sometimes the nearest neighbor can also be the problem instead of the solution. Especially if they decided to fill their 10,000 gallon pool out of the water table instead of trucking in water. Or they had a pipe break, etc...

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

Our dug well is about 12ft deep and at least 100yrs old. Fortunately it's right next to a primary wetland. Basically swamp water but reliable swamp water.

 

[Mendonsy]

It has been extremely dry here also. The local corn crops are a disaster. A lot of the corn is less than 2' tall.
I can think of a lot of reasons why that drilled well might have been abandoned, none of them are good. I would suggest hauling water for a while until the water table recovers to a point where you can use your well again.

 

[check]

Not a heckuva lot of rain north of Lake Ontario, either. Nor in cottage country, a couple of hours north of Toronto.

 

[rswyan]

Getting dry here in Northeast Ohio right where I'm at ... had thunderstorms predicted for the last four days and got nada, though there were showers all around us.

Since June 1st we are 2.34" below normal according to the NWS ... and that is at the local airport, could even be drier here at the house.

 

[nybirdman]

Around here;Northern NY the fire departments will refill your well with their tankers..may get you by for a while.

 

[msb1766]

Try calling water companies that fill pools, I know the guy I use to top off my pool delivers water to many homes that run into dry well problems.
They will pump the water into your well. He has few people that have swimming pool in there basements that they use for water only, he delivers water weekly to them. I topped off my poll this year with 8000 gallons of water it cost around $400.

 

[CalG]

It was mighty dry here in S. Vt,..... Until a day ago. Now we have enjoyed a steady drizzle with scattered rain showers that are supposed to continue on until tomorrow morning.

Whew! My wife was starting to fret over the gardens.

I hope you others got some of it, but not the flooding as in VA.

 

[JamesHW]

Upper Hudson Valley July rainfall totals were at about half normal, same as previous months. Our shallow well (point at about 20 foot) is always a worry during dry spells. Suppose one day we'll have to drill a proper deep well. Unfortunately most deep wells of neighbors require treatment for various issues, while our shallow well provides sweet, tasty water that tests out pure.

 

[mark02tj]

They will pump the water into your well.

I'm no expert (which never stops me from commenting or asking questions!), but wouldn't water poured into your well just dissipate into the ground around the well? So you might only end up getting a fraction of the water poured down the hole.

Also wouldn't the action of pouring the water down into a deep hole stir up all sorts of sediment which could clog the filters at the intake?

I'd look seriously at a storage tank. Around here we have varying degrees of water availability. My area has a really high water table. There's one old property about 300 yards from me that was still using a hand dug well with a hand pump in their yard as their only water source until the 3rd generation occupant sold the property and moved into a retirement community. But, in other parts of the Township people have to rely on water delivery and collection systems. There's one outfit that sells a system that basically "trickle pumps" water from slow producing wells into holding tanks. Then the water is pumped from the holding tanks into a pressure tank when needed. The theory is that the water can trickle into the holding tank around the clock and it's there when you need it.

 

[GLyford]

We just had a band of showers blow through last night and this morning, but it's not near enough, everything is still so dry. Half my maples are turning brown and curling up after putting in all that extra work recovering from the gypsy moths. I hope I don't loose them, but I wouldn't be surprised if I have to start a few off again from stump sprouts next year.

 

[Turbys_1700]

We had a severe drought here about 9 years ago. Most municipalities were on strict rations. Ended up with ordinances that fined you for washing cars, watering lawns, etc... Took a year to get 1/2 the state out of the immediate drought and another year to back up to normal levels.

I have a spring that and kept water throughout the drought. Many dug wells and springs went dry during this period. Several years ago Catawba County ran water by my house. I would have hooked up but they wanted over 2K just to hook up. I was still responsible for the line up to the meter. Thought that was too high so I didn't do it. 30 years ago Lincoln County ran it past my fathers house and did not charge to hook up.

If I was in your shoes I would try to get that drilled well up and running. At least see if you can use the water. If not you're gonna probably have to truck it in.

 

[dickfoster]

So despite living in Oswego County, darn near Lake Ontario almost my entire life, this is the first time I can recall being told we have a "drought". I'm not very agricultural, so I was wondering if anyone knew what the long term precipitation forecast is like for August and September, if such a thing can even really be predicted. Is the almanac real? Can I look in there? I get a feeling it isn't too good for things like weather, but I've been wrong before.

My well ran dry today. There is a drilled well on the property I've never used, that isn't plumbed to the house. I was thinking about dropping a submersible in there and pumping into the dug well that is plumbed into the house. It's not ideal, but it would be a short term solution if it's only needed every few days or so until some rain shows up. In fact, I wonder if that is why the previous owners drilled the well in the first place. Seems silly to drill a well and not use it.

I'm a little panicked, to be honest. Even as a child, we've never, ever had water issues, and I have no clue how to handle this.

I live in an area that sees a lot of drought. You may have heard of it, California. LOL
Some of my neighbors have had their wells go dry lately so I got antsy and put in 5K gallons of tanks last summer. The well pumps to the tanks and the tanks feed the house. Granted this isn't going to keep the well from going dry but it well reduce the impact from short term high demands and it will also tide me over should my well ever go dry because I can buy water if needed. It turns out around here you pay for 4K gallons whether or not you take all of it therefore the choice to go with 5K gallons worth of tanks. I placed the tanks uphill from the house which is a good thing in case the power goes out and my generator isn't running for some reason. If you have the terran, go that way. I get 10PSI of house pressure from gravity alone which is enough to take a navy shower, flush toilets and wash dishes with no pumps running. Another aspect to having water storage on hand is that you can't fight much of a fire with a well pump, especially as the power is likely to be out in the event of a forest fire. If you watch the news, forest fires are not uncommon in my neck of the woods either. 5K gallons is enough to run for a while, enough time to service and address any well issues without having to move out of the house and into a motel somewhere. When I put the tanks in, I also put a fire hydrant type of connection right on the side of one of the tanks so a fire truck can tap right into the 5K gallon water supply. I also added a smaller 2" outlet to the bottom of one tank so I can attach a gasoline powered pump if I ever need it to do a little fire fighting on my own. The two tanks are interconnected at the bottom with a 4" or 5" line so it looks like one 5K gallon tank. The cost is in the installation, pressure pump, trenching and such as the tanks are the minor part of the cost about $1500 for each 2500 gallon tank I think it was. I think it ran me something like $8K in total to get it all setup but on the whole, it's cheap insurance. Cheaper than a new well, I do know that much.