Droughts

At first glance, the two homes have nothing in common. One's an urban update of a rustic log cabin. The other, a 1920s Mediterranean casa. What links them is their imaginative drought-resistant gardens -- drastic departures from the lush carpets of grass that used to surround each one and that still front almost all the other houses in their neighborhoods. Neither of the homeowners set out to be environmentally up-to-date.

SHE has mulched, watered, weeded, plucked and pruned. Jan Smithen even did a little rain dance in her Upland garden earlier this year when it seemed the hot, dry weather might never end. Maybe that's what finally did the trick.

SACRAMENTO -- With California reservoirs low and a second dry winter sure to trigger rationing, Republican lawmakers demanded Wednesday that California's next water bond include new dams. Like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican legislators insist that California needs to immediately begin the eight-to-15-year process of dam construction to supply millions of additional residents as global warming shrinks the all-important Sierra snowpack.

From the shriveled cotton fields of northern Alabama to the browned lawns of suburban Atlanta, the Southeast is wilting under one of the most severe droughts in its history. In Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida, there has been less rain than at any time since records began in 1894. Farmers, who face the brunt of the drought, are harvesting parched fields of damaged corn, peanuts, corn and soybeans. Cattle producers are selling their stock because they cannot afford to pay for feed.

In a move to help ranchers and farmers get low-interest loans and other assistance, Gov. Jim Gibbons has asked for a federal disaster declaration because of drought conditions and a bad fire season. "The entire state has suffered extensive damage due to drought which has only been compounded by widespread wildfires during the 2007 season," Gibbons said in a letter to Chuck Conner, acting Agriculture secretary. Boyd Spratling, head of the Nevada Cattlemen's Assn.

With water supplies rapidly shrinking during a drought of historic proportions, Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency for the northern third of Georgia and asked President Bush to declare it a major disaster area. Georgia officials warn that Lake Lanier, a 38,000-acre reservoir that supplies more than 3 million residents with water, is less than three months from depletion. Smaller reservoirs are dropping even lower.

Gov. Sonny Perdue banned the washing of state vehicles and ordered inmates to take one quick shower a day as part of an effort to reduce water use in the drought-stricken state. Standing on the banks of a dwindling lake in West Point, Perdue ordered state agencies to reduce their water consumption by 10% to 15% as the state struggles with one of the worst droughts in its history.

While the West burns and the Southeast bakes, there is little to suggest a large-scale, climatological catastrophe playing out any time soon in the Midwest. In fact, farmers in Iowa and Minnesota had trouble last week harvesting their corn and soybean crops because there had been too much rain.

When Rick McKee, the editorial cartoonist of the Augusta Chronicle newspaper, set out to capture the historic and severe drought that is afflicting the Southeast, he did not draw parched rivers or shriveled crops or brown lawns: He drew an oafish, bloated hulk of a boy holding up a straw to slurp up water from a smaller boy's water fountain. Above the larger boy, a sign reads "Atlanta," above the other, "Everybody else."

Bowing his head outside the Georgia Capitol on Tuesday, Gov. Sonny Perdue cut a newly repentant figure as he publicly prayed for rain to end the region's historic drought. "Oh father, we acknowledge our wastefulness," Perdue said. "But we're doing better. And I thought it was time to acknowledge that to the creator, the provider of water and land, and to tell him that we will do better."