Associated Press | By KEVIN O'HANLON | July 3, 2002
IMPERIAL, Neb. -- Jack Lawless drove up to the Imperial Beef feedlot and glanced over the bone-dry rain gauge on a nearby poll.
"That's our flame of eternal hope," he said.
The feedlot was among several stops made Tuesday by Gov. Mike Johanns and other state officials to evaluate drought conditions in western and central Nebraska.
Lawless, general manager of the feedlot, said 17,000 head of cattle are now at the facility, which has capacity for 23,000. But he said many ranchers plan to ship their cattle to the feedlot because the drought has ravaged pastureland, leaving the animals with little on which to graze.
"If we get all the cattle here that we are supposed to, we are going to be swamped," he said.
This year's drought is the worst in memory.
"The 50s were bad, the 30s were bad, but nobody can remember anything this bad," he said.
Some ranchers who send their cattle to feedlots might just be delaying the inevitable financial disaster because of the costs involved.
And producers looking to sell their herds to save on feeding costs may find the market flooded now.
Even with rain, some of the pastures will take a long time to recover because they have been overgrazed, said Jeff Pribbeno, one of the feedlot owners.
Earlier in the day, Johanns visited the South Platte River at Ogallala, where the river has been reduced to a flow just a few feet wide.
"Boy, oh, boy. There is just nothing down there," Johanns said.
Roger Patterson, director of the state Department of Natural Resources, said the flow in the river "has been flat-lined since about March - no water."
Tom Hayden, a Bridgeport field supervisor for Patterson's department, told Johanns that river flow on the South Platte diminished much earlier this year.
"Usually, this is the way it looks in August," Hayden said.
Johanns also was able to see the effects of Nebraska's drought from the air Tuesday.
Johanns noted emerald green crop circles created by center pivot irrigation systems, in contrast to surrounding fields.
"If it's not watered, it's brown," he said.
Johanns' trip was delayed after the state airplane in which he and other state officials were flying had mechanical problems, which caused the cabin to overheat. The plane had taken off from Lincoln about 7 a.m. CDT and had been in the air about 15 minutes when the decision to return to the airport was made.
They left in another plane about 10 a.m.
Some areas of the state have seen temperatures of 90 degrees and above for more than a month, with little or no rain.
No part of Nebraska has received above normal amounts of precipitation since Jan. 1.
The 2002 drought could have a $307 million impact on Nebraska's struggling economy, according to a study done by Roy Frederick, with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of Agricultural Economics.
The loss to crops and pastureland alone is estimated at $153 million.
The drought of 2000 had an estimated $1.1 billion impact on the state's economy.
The drought is worsening in the Panhandle and southwest parts of Nebraska, and has moved eastward. Grasshoppers also are spreading havoc among farmers in central areas of the state.
The state's reservoirs are at or near record lows, with Lake McConaughy at about 61 percent of capacity.
All 93 of Nebraska's counties have been opened up to roadside hay harvesting to help feed livestock.
Twenty-six counties in western and central Nebraska have been declared federal disaster areas because of dry weather, hail, high winds, a spring frost and grasshoppers. ---
On the Net:
National Drought Mitigation Center: http://enso.unl.edu/ndmc/
Drought Monitor: http://drought.unl.edu/dm/
Nebraska Climate Assessment and Response Committee: http://carc.nrc.state.ne.us/carcunl/
U.S. Department of Agriculture: http://www.usda.gov/Associated Press:
