Drought is a slow emergency. It does not swoop down out of the skies like a tornado or pull the earth apart like an earthquake. A drought of the kind the Eastern seaboard in the United States is suffering now, the worst of this century in at least four states, is the product not of one summer’s failed rains but of chronic dryness over several seasons—compounded by routine profligacy in our use of water. It is the result of what we have all been taught to call good weather—hot, it is true, but blue skies day after day, mild winters, and little snow. It is also the result of what we have come to call normal water use. The drought of 1999 has become severe enough to bring about a flurry of administrative actions intended to mitigate its effects on farms, businesses and communities. On Friday, President Clinton ordered to organize timely drought relief. New Jersey’s Governor, Christine Todd Whitman, and the Governors of Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia have all imposed mandatory restrictions on water use. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman has declared West Virginia and 33 counties in 5 surrounding states a disaster area. Meanwhile, the Senate approved $7.4 billion in aid to farmers, to which a drought disaster relief package will need to be added. This is all to the good, and it may also reconcentrate for a moment, our attention on this nation’s patterns of water usage. Drought is nothing new, and dealing with it does not require radically new ideas. Many organizations have been set up in recent years in order to monitor drought conditions and respond to them as the long-term events they are. According to the National Drought Mitigation Center nearly every encounter with water scarcity leads to a set of recommendations—essentially the ones invoked in a drought emergency—meant to discourage consumption and encourage recycling. But once the rains begin again and controls are lifted, water use tends to rebound to previous levels. Drought dramatizes an epistemological problem that has real, practical effects. There is something almost intangible about the causes of drought, something as abstract and as forceful as fate. It is hard to tie any single drought unequivocally to the solid evidence of global warming, but that too lurks in many people’s minds as the ultimate cause of this summer’s drought. Against such a grand array of forces, it can be hard to imagine how taking a shorter shower or watering the lawn less frequently makes a difference. But individual action—conserving water—is the basis for collective action, and collectively, the residents of drought-stricken states can make an enormous difference in their own welfare, both now, when stream levels are at record lows, and in the future, when rain returns. Farmers, of course, are forced to take the weather as it comes. Farms, like many other forms of industry, require water for economic survival, which is exactly what is at risk again this year. The reserves of water in reservoirs have been steadily diminishing. So have the economic reserves of American farmers, who find themselves bringing their products to market, if they survive this dry season at ail, at depressed prices. Neither of these problems, drought or farm income can be solved with a sudden flurry of attention. They require long-term commitment and the changing of habits that are so persistent we have come to call them normal. By saying that 'drought is a slow emergency', the author means that