By Tabi Secor
The drought that has been engulfing much of the Midwest this summer has had major effects on two of the colleges’ programs.
“[The drought] has so severely impacted this program,” said Lekha Sreedhar, chair, Horticulture Sciences.
Students in the Horticulture program typically work during the summer and come back to school in the fall. In the summer students do landscaping and mowing, but because of the drought, there have not been many jobs available.
“I get emails from students who say they don’t have the money to come back in the fall,” Sreedhar said. “The program is down about 17 percent for the fall.”
The program has a 10,000 gallon reservoir available, but it mostly relies on rainwater that has been collected and stored on site. If there is no rainwater to collect, the reservoir serves as the primary source of water for the plants at the Horticulture building.
Stu Shafer, chair, Sustainable Agriculture, said that their program is also being affected.
“We were out on the campus farm, and I took a picture of four of the students working in the soybean section,” Shafer said. “One of the students was working on the rotor tiller, and you could see the dust come right up. The soil is just really dry.”
For the agriculture industry, the drought has played a significant role in global climate change.
“The drought is part of the bigger pattern of global climate change,” Shafer said. “It’s just not the drought this year, and the long term that’s affecting us, but the rising of the temperature.”
According to Sreedhar, droughts do not just impact plants, but numerous other areas that people may not realize.
“Droughts seriously impacts our food production, our environment, our livestock consumption, everything,” she said.
As for how long it will take to bounce back from a drought like this, Sreedhar said it could take awhile.
“The problem is that winter wasn’t so good either, so there’s going to be pest issues as well,” she said. “West Nile Virus is a good example of how big the drought is. It’s going to take a couple years to bounce back.”
Sreedhar said that there are simple things the campus community can do to help out the environment during the drought.
“Don’t leave the sprinklers on, and start watering the streets,” she said. “Mulch really helps conserve water. So if you have mulched in the early spring, you don’t have to water as much.”
Shafer agreed.
“Reservoirs, which are major sources of water, and rivers which are another major source of water, and then the ground water, all of those supplies are finite,” he said. “It seems like it’s infinite when we can just turn on the tap, but they’re finite. And when in a drought, they’re reduced. So everybody should be aware how they’re using water and limit it.”
WaterOne provides water to Johnson County, and although they have not implemented any required water restrictions, they have asked some people in the county to voluntarily change their watering habits.
According to their website, WaterOne has asked customers living in sections of Leawood, Overland Park, and Prairie Village to change their outdoor watering schedule due to water demand in the area.
Sreedhar said the issue of water consumption is important to future generations.
“It’s time we started talking about these issues,” she said. “We can’t just deplete everything, and not think about the next generation of this planet.”
Contact Tabi Secor, news editor, at tsecor@jccc.edu.