Lake County added to statewide disaster list for drought relief

By TRIP BURNS

Lake County Leader

Lake County officials will request that Gov. Steve Bullock declare the county a “Natural Disaster,” due to the extreme weather and damage to commodities this season. 

The Lake County commissioners will soon send the paperwork to the governor’s office to be eligible for relief through the Farm Services Agency.

Jack Stivers, an agent at the Montana State University’s extension office and liaison between the commissioners and the state government, said that enough damage has been done to warrant such a request. “I don’t think the rain will stop anything,” he said.

Stivers said he will complete the necessary paperwork referencing low yield percentages of crops from the drought but also the late freezes in spring.

“The button’s been pushed,” he said. The next step will be sending the paperwork to the commissioners, who will then send a formal request to Bullock.

The severity of the drought means that the nine counties in Montana might be eligible for assistance from the Farm Service Agency. The assistance would be in the form of emergency loans to farmers in the area. The assistance is the result of such counties being declared in a “Natural Disaster” status by the U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Thomas Vilsack, in accordance with section 321(a) of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act.

The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation have been in contact with the county commissioners whose counties are designated “Extreme Drought” by the U.S. Drought Monitor. On July 16 Lt. Gov. Angela McClain will meet in Helena with leaders of affected counties to see if the severity warrants a natural disaster.

If Lake County is designated a natural disaster, farmers will have eight months to apply for emergency loans. Farmers are encouraged to consult with nearby Farm Service Agency offices. 

If approved, the Farm Service Agency will contact the commissioners for the logistics of emergency money being given to those affected, Stivers said. 

Weekend rain helped to bring moisture and relief to the land, but not enough to bring Lake County and the Flathead Indian Reservation out of the drought affecting the area and Northwest Montana.

Last week the National Weather Service moved Lake County and nearby counties to the category of “Extreme Drought.” The National Weather Service divides the weather designation into five categories: Abnormally Dry, Moderate Drought, Extreme Drought, and Exceptional Drought. Lake County conditions were designated as “Moderate Drought” for over a month.

Montana also has different classifications and has Lake County listed as “Severe Drought,” the highest level of drought. The department of Natural Resources and Conservation designated nine other counties as such: Silver Bow, Deer Lodge, Granite, Powell, Mineral, Sanders, Lake, Flathead and Lincoln.

The weather phenomenon El Nino, during which warm winds from the Pacific Ocean flow inland as part of a pattern, is one of the main reasons why Lake County and Northwest Montana are experiencing the drought, according to meteorologist Jeff Kitsmiller at the National Weather Service in Missoula.

Montana’s overall dryness is due to Pacific winds blowing weather systems north and south of the Mission mountains, Kitsmiller said, but El Nino pushes the weather systems further north and south.

During these times, rainfall is much needed here in the valley, but predicting where and when is difficult, he said.

“There isn’t a good signal whether it will be dry or wet during the summertime,” he said.

July could be a month with above average precipitation, which will help not only with water usage and dryness, but also help stop the spread of dangerous wildfires.

“We’ve got some pretty good weather systems coming up,” he said.

Predicting how dry the winter will be remains uncertain, but there are data indicators that meteorologists use to determine the effects of dry weather, not just El Nino.

Last September, when the first signals of El Nino were appearing, the National Weather service predicted a drier than usual winter for Lake County. As a consequence of El Nino, the Mission Valley experienced milder temperatures and reduced snowpack. 

Kitsmiller said the current El Nino pattern, which started last September, usually lasts 15 months, and will also affect the snowpack during this upcoming winter, mostly during the months of December, January, and February. The previous El Nino that caused reduced snowpack occurred during the 2009-2010 winters.

Lake County’s reservoirs such as the Mission reservoir in St. Ignatius and the Pablo reservoir are currently showing signs of fatigue, causing water restrictions such as two weeks ago, when water usage was restricted and rotated for over a week in parts of the valley.

Irrigators began using water from the reservoirs weeks earlier than usual to use on crops, due to the unusually warm temperatures in spring, coupled with the mild winter preceding it.

Visit www.drought.gov for updated information provided by the state with in-depth resources for Lake County and other counties affected by the drought.