Drought wreaks havoc in Maine

BROWNFIELD, Maine -- Carol Noonan knew the drought was bad when she ran out of water in the middle of her shower and had to rinse her soapy hair with the only water around: in her dog's drinking bucket.

After their 15-foot-deep well ran dry, Noonan and her husband let their dirty dishes pile up and started using paper plates. They stopped using their clothes washer and dishwasher. They recycled by dumping water from their pasta pot into the toilet tank.

The Noonans are among thousands of Maine residents whose wells have run dry or slowed to a trickle because of a severe drought gripping the state -- and much of the country.

It's so bad the Federal Emergency Management Agency is considering making Maine the first state ever to receive disaster funds for a drought.

Nationwide, droughts now cover about a third of the country, cutting huge swaths from Maine to Georgia in the East, and from Montana to Texas in the West.

Recent rains and snow have provided a respite for some in Maine. But forecasters warn that precipitation must run well above normal for several months to bring the state out of a drought that is the worst in 107 years of record-keeping.

In a state with thousands of lakes and rivers, Maine residents are accustomed to plentiful water.

The state gets more than 40 inches of rain a year; there are 7,000 rivers and 5 million acres of wetlands; and the state's 5,785 lakes and ponds cover an area larger than Rhode Island.

Getting that water to the tap isn't as easy as it sounds given that about 280,000 Maine households, or roughly 45 percent of the state, get water from wells instead of a public system. Of those, about 53,000 are shallow-water wells that are only 10 to 20 feet deep and most susceptible to drying up.

Thought pump was bad

Peter Mead of Brownfield, who uses a shallow well, thought his pump had gone bad when his tap ran dry in January. Wells run dry in the summer, he thought, not in the heart of winter.

Now he fills a pickup truck load of containers with water from town and transfers them to three plastic garbage cans in his front hallway. This is the household water for cooking, cleaning and the toilets.

To shower, Mead, 50, stands in a washtub-like receptacle and pours water heated on his wood stove over his head. The three children who still live at home shower at friends' houses.

"This is my water system right now," Mead said sadly as he looked at the garbage cans in his front hall. "You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess."

Only, he hasn't a clue what he might do next.

Even if the federal government issues low-interest loans to dig new wells, he doesn't know how he would afford it; he's recovering from back surgery and isn't working these days.

"Four or five thousand dollars? I don't have it," he said. "I don't think many people do."