Arthur Rothstein / Library of Congress
Members of a drought committee at farm near Guymon, Okla. in 1936.
Drought conditions have persisted in Oklahoma for two years, which has had wide-ranging effects on the economy and the budgets of both state and local governments.
According to estimates by researchers at Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma has suffered $2 billion in losses from the 2011 and 2012 drought.
Other states are suffering from the drought, too, which is the worst since 1956, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The effects of the drought are especially fierce in farm states like Oklahoma, where the legacy and memories of the 1930s Dust Bowl still lingers.
The 2010/2011 drought began in the fall of 2010 and lasted through summer 2011. The current drought settled over Oklahoma in early summer, and now “extreme” or “exceptional” drought conditions now cover almost the entire state, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Economically, agriculture has been most directly impacted by the drought. Oklahoma farmland is almost entirely non-irrigated, so farmers here depend on rainfall for crops, many of which have withered.
U.S. Drought Monitor
Almost the entire state is under "extreme" or "exceptional" drought conditions, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Oklahoma’s biggest cash crop — wheat — was spared by a wetter-than-expected spring in 2012, but the drought is threatening other crops like cotton, soybeans, hay and pecans. Wells are drying up, ranchers are worried about livestock, and the impact is now spreading related industries — like crop dusting — and measured in lagging equipment sales and layoffs.
Drought conditions have also magnified the effects of recent wildfires, which are taxing county and municipal budgets.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in January 2013 issued disaster declarations for all 77 Oklahoma counties.
The declaration — the agency’s first for 2013 — makes low-interest loans available to farmers in 597 counties nationwide, the Tulsa World reports.
It was just a few months ago when lakes across western Oklahoma were drying up, and the prospects for relief from five years of drought were desperately poor.
Fallin told the crowd Oklahoma’s oil and gas industry injected 1.5 billion barrels of wastewater from fracking into the ground last year.
Oklahoma’s lakes weren’t built to last forever. Over time, dirt and debris are slowly filling them in.
Honeybees are dying at an alarming rate across the country, but no state lost a greater percentage of its bees than Oklahoma over the last year.
Flooding has becoming a big problem for the agriculture industry.
Scientists turned the four-year drought into an opportunity to study what the future might be like for the state’s wheat farmers.
This May already ranks as one of the wettest in state history, and continues to snuff out the four-year drought that dried up cities in southwest Oklahoma.
