NEW YORK– The mayor of New York has called on residents to take shorter showers, repair dripping taps and otherwise save water. On Saturday, he issued a drought warning here and in much of the United States after a parched October.
A drought watch is the first of three possible levels of water conservation guidelines, and Adams threw it in a video on social media as a step to try to avert the possibility of a larger shortage in the United States’ most populous city.
“Mother Nature is in charge, so we have to make sure we adapt,” said Adams, a Democrat.
He directed all city agencies to get ready to implement their water conservation plans. He asked the public to do their part by, for example, turning off the taps while brushing teeth and sweeping sidewalks instead of rinsing them.
The mayor also urged residents to report open fire hydrants and other street leaks. The recommendation comes days after the city fixed a leaking fire hydrant in Brooklyn that fueled one homemade goldfish pond on the sidewalk.
Only 0.02 inches of rain fell last month in the city’s Central Park, which normally receives about 4.5 inches of precipitation in October, National Weather Service data show. Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said it was the driest October in more than 150 years of records.
What complicates the water cramp is the city repairing a large, leaking aqueduct that brings water from the Catskill region, so residents rely more on reservoirs in the city’s northern suburbs. That area received 0.81 inches (2 cm) of rain last month, about one-fifth of the October average, the mayor’s office said in a news release Saturday.
New York City uses an average of 4.2 billion gallons of water per day. That’s about 35% below the 1979 peak. The city attributes the decline to factors such as improvements in leak detection.
Last month, almost half the country was in one sudden droughtwhich means rapid dehydration due to a combination of low rainfall and abnormally high temperatures. The Northeast ended the month with an unusual – one might even say strange – warm Halloweenwith temperatures reaching the high 70s and low 80s (24 to 28 degrees Celsius) from New York to Maine.
Experts attributed the sudden drought to a weather pattern that prevented moisture from moving north from the Gulf of Mexico.
The dry weather restricted shipping on the Mississippi River and contributed to wildfires in the Midwest and East.
The National Weather Service continued to warn Saturday of an increased fire risk in areas including Connecticut, where a firefighter died last month while battling a days-long wildfire apparently sparked by a poorly extinguished campfire.