A Kenai Peninsula village is rapidly running out of water. Low snowpack and little rainfall has led Nanwalek to declare a water emergency.
Officials say the floodwaters are swamping Alaska towns, tearing buildings from foundations, seeping into homes and covering roads. In Glennallen, the local utility is setting up Porta-Potties around the community, and area residents are asked to limit water usage. The state transportation department said there was water over a portion of the Glenn Highway on Monday, but the road remained open.
A 10-mile ice jam on the Lower Kuskokwim River has caused severe flooding in Tuluksak, with the area experiencing its worst flooding in over a decade.
Over the summer, drought and damages to Chignik Lagoon’s water distribution system left the village without drinkable water. The state issued a boil water notice in July, and the wells were dry by August. Residents relied on Packers Creek to supplement their needs through October. Now those worries have subsided; at the end of October …
Southeast Alaska has suffered from a drought and warmer-than-normal temperatures for about two years now. The month of July broke more records.
Heavy rains toppled trees and buried roads on Prince of Wales Island Monday. Local and state transportation crews are responding to at least seven landslides blocking roads on the Southeast Alaska island.
The main water line comes from Lily Lake through 10,000 feet of line. According to Supervisor Dennis Durr, “We’re making 130 gallons a minute right now. Normally this time of year we should be making at least 250 gallons a minute. We’re not keeping up right now, but we are making water. That’s good. That’s keeping us in the ball game here.”
One of the worst droughts in the nation is in Southeast Alaska. That’s according to federal meteorologists. Ground zero is Wrangell, a city that’s struggled for years to keep up with summer water demand. Wrangell’s water supply comes from two reservoirs. Levels are healthy right now, even overflowing. But the flume that feeds water into them is already dry, thanks to warm dry weather and 50% less snow pack then last year.
The water well is dry due to a lack of rain, and the village’s distribution system is damaged. As of Thursday, residents had only 5,000 gallons of drinkable water left.
I was home with my kids. They were on Christmas break. And I went to turn on the faucet in the morning to get things ready for breakfast and air came out of the faucet Glottfelty said. The water started flowing normally again after a few days. But after asking around the neighborhood, Glottfelty found out that many of her neighbors, connected to the same aquifer as a nearby church well had similar problems that day – in all, six wells were drained, she says, and one went permanently dry.
Federal officials have declared a drought-related disaster in Rhode Island while New England’s second-largest city is restricting outdoor water use as the drought in the Northeast worsens.
Drought conditions across Upcountry Maui have prompted the county to update its water shortage status for the unforeseeable future. Demand for water in the area currently exceeds supply by 20% — which moves its status from Stage 1 to Stage 2, county officials said Thursday.
A new study quantifies the rate at which Eklutna Glacier is losing its icy mass. Between 1957 and 2010, the loss of glacier mass averaged 5 percent a year.
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