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Drought drying up some business in Lowcountry
By Lindsay Street
Staff Writer
The sweetgrass is brown, the grapevines are dropping fruit, the shrimp aren’t running and the crabs are too far up the creeks to legally catch—all examples of how the Lowcountry is being affected by the drought.
The S.C. Drought Response Committee elevated the state’s drought status to moderate June 6. Although Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties have not enacted mandatory water restrictions, the drought’s effects can be felt by a variety of businesses.
South Carolina’s last major drought lasted from 1998 to 2002 and moderate droughts tend to strike the state in three-year intervals, state climatologist Hope Mizzell said. Along the coast, the average rainfall is 48 to 52 inches of rain per year, and currently there is an 8-inch deficit.
This spring has been one of the top three driest springs in the last 100 years, Mizzell said.
In spite of rains this month, Mizzell said it would take consistent rainfall to defeat the state’s drought status; at least one inch of rain would have to fall each week.
“The rainfall has been helpful at least temporarily,” Mizzell said. The climatologist could not forecast drought relief in the near-term, however. At least the rains have provided some relief.
“That rain wouldn’t make that much of a difference,” said sweetgrass basket maker Nakia Wigfall after a recent rain. “Right now you should be seeing nothing but green. But if you drive along Hungryneck Boulevard, (the sweetgrass plants) look more brown; it’s dead.”
Basket makers will not use dead sweetgrass. They will throw it out with the trash, she said.
“You wouldn’t want to use something that’s dead,” she said, adding that this is the way she learned to work with sweetgrass.
What Wigfall described was repeated by Karl Ohlandt, a horticulturist working for Sea Island Trust near Beaufort. Ohlandt grows sweetgrass and is considered a sweetgrass specialist by some at the Charleston County Clemson University Cooperative Extension.
Sweetgrass, like most grasses, is drought-tolerant in comparison to many other plants, Ohlandt said. It can take intervals of drought but it will grow more slowly, creating longer periods in between harvests for basket makers.
“I have seen more brown on (the grass). And the slow growth? I’ve noticed that too,” Ohlandt said.
These changes are noticeable compared to last year when the grass received
adequate rain, he added.
Although the current drought may not affect the reproduction of the plants, if the drought continues for an extended period of time, the plants will produce fewer seeds and ultimately decrease the population of sweetgrass, Ohlandt said.
If the drought lasts for more than three years, the sweetgrass basket making industry may be unable to survive, Wigfall said.
“(The grass is) dying faster,” she said of the current conditions, noting that it will probably impact her business.
Local vineyard owner Jim Irvin has noticed the drought too. Irvin opened Irvin House Vineyard in 2002 at the end of the last major drought. Since his first year, Irvin has built an irrigation system to help his crop survive during times of drought.
As of mid-June, Irvin said his property has seen only one tenth of an inch of rain since March 1 and he has had to use his irrigation system seven times to keep the vines from becoming too dry.
Irvin grows Muscadine grapes, which have shallow roots that helped the plant adapt to a normally wet climate, Irvin said. Adequate water ensures growth of the plant and helps the vines retain fruit. If the plant is stressed by lack of water, it will drop unripe fruit as a survival mechanism, he said.
Two years ago, Irvin battled another crop danger: too much water. In 2005, his vines received more than 20 inches of rain and some were drowned, resulting in economic losses for the vineyard.
“Farmers are at constant odds with weather: it’s either not enough rain or too much rain,” he said.
With the current drought condition, the ponds that feed his irrigation system are 4 feet below normal levels.
“You just sort of panic when you can see the bottom of your pond,” Irvin said.
Since Irvin uses irrigation to supply water to his crops, any rain is beneficial and will be stored in the ponds. Although some vines have dropped their fruit because of the dry conditions, Irvin said he would be unable to estimate damages until the harvest in August and September.
Plants aren’t the only organisms affected by rain. The shrimp and crab industries depend on rain to help increase catches, said David Whitaker, assistant deputy director of the S.C. Department of Natural Resource’s Marine Resources Division.
During droughts, estuary salinity rises, Whitaker said. Higher salinity levels affect the shrimp industry because during times of prolonged drought, salt marsh grass can begin to die and restrict habitat for adolescent shrimp, possibly reducing the shrimp population; and larger, mature shrimp tend to stay in the tidal creeks, making it more difficult for commercial fishermen to catch.
In the last drought, the salt marsh grass started dying, reducing nursery habitat for many species including shrimp, Whitaker said. Predators could easily snap up adolescent shrimp, fish and crabs. But, he added, that situation happened over an extended drought and it would take one to two years of drought conditions to cause marsh grass loss.
“We may have a better chance of seeing it next year,” Whitaker said.
In addition to less commercially caught shrimp, Lowcountry crab pots may see fewer blue crabs during a drought, Whitaker said. The salinity levels do not negatively effect the crab population, but crab larvae retreat higher up rivers toward more brackish, less salty waters, he added. Once mature, the crabs tend to remain up creek until the rain drives them toward saltier estuaries.
The Department of Natural Resources has set arbitrary potting lines along the mouths of fresh-water rivers, restricting crabbers from venturing too far upstream. In times of drought, the creeks become unfavorably saltier at the mouths and the crab population remains out of reach for crabbers, Whitaker said.
In previous droughts, crabbers tended to congregate along the DNR-sanctioned lines, hoping to catch crabs venturing a little more seaward, he added.
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