Floods and Climate Change: Midwest Floods

Getty Images/Scott Olson: Karen Wilborn weeps as she embraces Bonnie Dean of the Humane Society of Missouri after Dean helped to rescue animals from Wilborn’s flooded home June 14 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.On June 19, the day President George Bush and presidential hopeful Barak Obama, in separate trips, toured flood-ravaged areas in Iowa and Illinois, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program released the most comprehensive government assessment yet of the consequences of global warming for North America.

The conclusion: Rains heavier than normal, hotter heat waves, longer droughts and fiercer tropical storms “are attributable to human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases.” In short, we may be bringing the extreme weather on ourselves.

The report, “Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate,” synthesizes more than 100 individual studies. That the report was released as Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri filled with floodwaters and amid the deadliest tornado season in at least a decade was a coincidence. However, its conclusions seemed to provide some timely answers to questions that arose as the Midwest experienced its second 500-year flood in 15 years.

That the Climate Change Science Program was created by President George W. Bush, whose administration has been reluctant to finger climate change and global warming as major threats, makes the report all the more noteworthy. The science program was created in 2002 to integrate federal research on climate and global change from 13 federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation.

In May, the agency reported that burning fossil fuels in power plants and automobiles is most likely responsible for global warming, endorsing an opinion accepted by many of the world’s scientists. The June 19 report looks specifically at climate change and extreme weather in North America.

According to Tom Karl, one of the report’s authors and the director of the National Climate Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Asheville, N.C., the most frequent question asked of climate scientists is how global warming will affect weather. The June 19 report, Karl said in a statement released with the report, “examines this question across North America and concludes that we are now witnessing and will increasingly experience more extreme weather and climate events.”

How did global warming cause flooding in Iowa? The scientists tell us that as global temperatures rise, so do sea surface temperatures. This leads to more evaporation and more water vapor in the atmosphere. At some point the water has to come down. At least one expert is fairly certain that’s what happened in Iowa.

Getty Images/Scott Olson: A cornfield is submerged in floodwater June 16 near Oakville, Iowa.Ken Kunkel is a specialist in “extreme precipitation.” He is a coauthor of the Climate Change Science Program’s report and interim chief of the Illinois State Water Survey office.

Kunkel told USA Today that the evidence is clear.

“When you get a system like we have had over the past month or two in the Midwest, this persistent pattern of low pressure and fronts in the area, now there is more moisture to work with and they produce frequently heavy rains,” Kunkel said. “We’re in an era when these heavy rain events have been occurring more frequently.”

The report suggests what we can expect in coming years:

* Abnormally hot days and nights and heat waves are very likely to become more frequent.

* Cold days and cold nights are very likely to become much less frequent. The number of days with frost is likely to decrease.

* Sea ice extent is expected to continue to decrease and may even disappear entirely in the Arctic Ocean in summer. This will increase extreme coastal erosion in Arctic Alaska and Canada.

* On average, precipitation is likely to be less frequent but more intense, and precipitation extremes are very likely to increase.

* Droughts are likely to become more frequent and severe in some regions -- particularly the U.S. Southwest and parts of Mexico -- leading to reduced water supplies and increased wildfires.

* The rainfall and wind speeds of hurricanes in the North Atlantic and North Pacific will increase.

The insurance industry is among the global warming believers. “We think that climate change is really a driver, not only in tropical storms but in other precipitation events,” Eberhard Faust, head of climate risk analysis for Munich Re, the world’s second-biggest reinsurer, told Bloomberg.com. “We can anticipate that many of these processes will get even worse, even stronger.”

The day the report on Climate change and extreme weather was released, the EPA also released a report reviewing strategies to protect ecosystems from weather changes caused by climate change. The EPA report, titled “Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources,” said that “many existing best management practices ... can also be applied to reduce the impacts of climate change.”

On “extreme precipitation events,” for example, the EPA report says that existing practices like buffer zones between agricultural land and water courses not only slow down the rush of rainwater into creeks and rivers, but also protect against sediment and pollution from washing out of fields. Some experts in the hard hit Midwest, however, argue that those “best practices” are being abandoned as the price for commodity crops increases, luring farmers to plant every available acre, thus destroying natural deterrents to flooding.

A toxic mix

The flooding killed 24 people and it is estimated that more than 40,000 people evacuated their homes, as towns were reduced to a grid of canals and homes were ripped from their foundations by rising waters.

Besides levees breached and homes destroyed, there was heavy damage to rural infrastructure -- roads, bridges, dams, sewers, water treatment and power generating facilities. Highways were swamped, manufacturing and food processing factories shut down, and the earnings of railroads, farmers and other businesses disrupted.

Fears that as many as 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost in this fertile U.S. farm belt pushed up corn and other food commodity prices to record highs.

Robert Gronski, policy director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, located in Des Moines, Iowa, told NCR that in Iowa alone, 83 of its 99 counties are eligible for federal disaster relief.

Gronski described the impact of the flooding on the environment: “A lot of things get washed into streams and rivers from floodwaters. Fertilizers, manure from livestock and, in some cases, dead livestock themselves make for a toxic mix. Thus the drinking water is fouled in many cases.”

As the high waters retreated from devastated towns, a layer of toxic sludge has covered everything, brought into the houses after floodwaters ran through gas stations, stores, sewage treatment plants and farms that house fertilizer and pesticides. The smell is the least of homeowners’ problems.

“We found some elevated levels of bacteria, E-coli, and some industrial chemicals, some motor oil and diesel fuel,” said Michael Wichman, associate director of environmental health at the University of Iowa, where the sludge was tested.

“If you drink this water and live, tell me about it,” Leroy Lippert, chairman of emergency management and homeland security in Des Moines County, Iowa, told The Associated Press. “It is very wise to stay out of it. It’s as dangerous as anything.”

Down the river

This foul soup could pose a serious threat to life elsewhere.

“This mix is headed down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico,” Gronski said. “The result will be that the Dead Zone in the Gulf will be much bigger and more intense.”

The Dead Zone refers to a vast bloom of algae occurring every year in the Gulf that kills sea life. It forms after nutrients from fertilizers and other chemicals nourish algae which is already present. The bloom then dies, sinks and decays, robbing the water of oxygen. Between 2003 and 2007, the Dead Zone covered an average of 5,637 square miles. This year scientists predict it could cover twice that area as a result of the Midwest flooding.

The agriculture system, the way we treat the land, may have contributed to the flooding as well, according to Gronksi. “Monoculture, the intensive cultivation of single crops like corn and soybeans, creates a terrain in which it’s difficult for the land to absorb storm waters that fall upon it. The flooding is probably not just an instance of an extreme weather event, but a combination of excessive rain and big changes in land stewardship over the past decades. More housing developments around cities and larger towns also allow water to wash off more quickly into streams and creeks.

Kamyar Enshayan, professor at University of Northern Iowa, suspects this disaster wasn’t completely natural. “Crop fields have been drained by piping in a practice known as ‘tiling,’ stream paths have been straightened, wetlands that border watersheds have been plowed under for corn planting. Flood plains have been transformed into fields as the price for commodities like corn and soybeans has risen dramatically in the past few years,” he told The Washington Post.

“I sense that the flooding is not the result of a 500-year event,” said Jerry DeWitt, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. “We’re farming closer to creeks and rivers. Without adequate buffer strips, the water moves rapidly from the field directly to surface water.”

Between 2007 and 2008, farmers took 106,000 acres out of the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to keep fields uncultivated. That land, if left untouched, probably would have been covered with perennial grasses with deep roots that help absorb water, according to Lyle Asell, an assistant for agriculture with Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources.

About predictions of major crop losses across the nation’s prime agricultural lands, Gronksi said, “It’s hard to tell now what this will mean. Commodity growers, the big corn and soybean producers, will probably be able to replant. If the season doesn’t hold any further surprises, the harvest should come in, though lower than expected. At the beginning of the season, it was looking good but now it’s in doubt.

“We’re particularly worried about the small farms, those growing vegetables that supply the farmers’ markets across the Midwest. They don’t have the same crop insurance that the big guys have.”

‘Vegetables don’t wait’

Iowa has more than 900 vegetable farms that produce crops worth $20 million a year, according to data produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Vegetable farmers say they have lost a portion of their crops because of bad weather and the crops that survived are three or four weeks behind their normal development. This comes at a time when demand for local food is booming.

Robert Kibby, a vegetable farmer in Ely, near Cedar Rapids, told NCR: “We are located on high ground so we received no direct flooding. However, our local farmers’ market was located at a parking lot next to the river and was inundated with floodwaters. The market was closed for a week before the city relocated us. Unfortunately most vegetables don’t wait for relocated markets. Our customers have been slow finding our new location and some may not even come to the relocated market because it is on the other side of town. It’s like starting all over again in establishing a customer base. It takes time. We have no crop failure insurance.”

Gronski said that immigrant workers in the Midwest are a significant hidden group affected by the flooding. “They may be hesitant to come in for any kind of public assistance from FEMA or Red Cross. They are wading in the same toxic waters as everyone else, but they will be depending on the churches that look after people who fall through the cracks.”

Gronski said that though it’s too early to predict the effect of the flooding on world food supplies, the potential is there for price increases. “Midwest corn and soybeans provide feed for cattle, hogs, poultry and dairy, thus affecting prices for meat, milk and cheese. Even wheat prices can go up as livestock producers and poultry growers look to it to supplement other feed sources. That would drive up the price of bread and pasta.

“In many ways, the floodwaters may reach all of us,” Gronksi said.

Dennis Coday and Rich Heffern are NCR staff writers. Their e-mail addresses are dcoday@ncronline.org and rheffern@ncronline.org.

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Midwest flood statistics

* 24 killed, 148 injured

* Approximately 35,000-40,000 people evacuated from homes

* Seven states affected: South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Missouri

* Flood warnings cover a span of about 325 miles from Dubuque, Iowa, to St. Louis.

* Mississippi River crested at 37 feet in St. Louis area, seven feet above flood level.

* Individuals from FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. General Services Administration and the Defense Logistics Agency have worked together to provide 3,618,000 liters of water, and, 12.8 million sandbags, enough to reach from coast to coast if laid side by side.

* In Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin, 42,080 registrations for assistance have been received from disaster victims and $69 million has been approved for housing assistance and other disaster-related needs.

* Nine Iowa rivers crested at record levels.

* In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, water covered 1,300 city blocks, 9.2 square miles. Cedar Rapids recorded 24.09 inches of rain for the year, more than 10 inches above normal.

* Areas of Cedar Rapids are flooded beyond the 500-year flood level of 26.5 feet.

* Damage costs in Cedar Rapids estimated at more than $1.5 billion

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How to help

Catholic Charities
www.catholiccharitiesusa.org
Call (800) 919-9338

Send checks to:
Catholic Charities USA
Midwest Floods
PO Box 7068
Merrifield, VA 22116-7068

National Catholic Reporter July 11, 2008