{"id":90090,"date":"2025-10-20T13:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/90090\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T13:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T13:34:09","slug":"extreme-drought-conditions-leave-n-l-homesteader-adapting-to-a-lower-water-supply","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/90090\/","title":{"rendered":"Extreme drought conditions leave N.L. homesteader adapting to a lower water supply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like many in Newfoundland and Labrador, Steve McBride waited through August for the rain to come. Then September passed, still leaving the ground dry.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s mid-October and the Southern Shore homesteader says his well is near ground-level.<\/p>\n

He and his partner care for ducks, turkeys, goats and bees. They all get thirsty regardless of the dry weather, so these days McBride has to make a regular trip to a nearby pond to stock up.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just sort of take it for granted. You think the rain\u2019s gonna come,\u201d he told On The Go\u2019s Gavin Simms in an interview for the CBC Radio program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McBride says he moved to N.L. 12 years ago because he thought it would be less affected by climate change than other regions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of felt like we were getting off the hook,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That unfortunately wasn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada\u2019s drought monitor indicates that the Avalon Peninsula is experiencing severe to extreme drought \u2014 both short and long term \u2014\u00a0 as of Sept. 30.<\/p>\n

\"AThe Canadian Drought Monitor indicates that most of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador is under an extreme drought. (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)<\/p>\n

According to the federal department, N.L. was \u201cnotably drier\u201d than other Atlantic provinces this summer.<\/p>\n

McBride\u2019s homestead outside of the town of Mobile lies in the \u201cextreme\u201d zone. He\u2019s seeing the effect of the dry spell not only in the water supply, but also in the animals\u2019 behaviour.<\/p>\n

He had to start watering his bees for the first time, for example.<\/p>\n

When he put a tray of water near the bees one day, McBride says they descended on it within minutes to collect water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was an \u2018a-ha\u2019 moment for me where I was realizing that they weren\u2019t getting the water they needed from the environment anymore,\u201d said McBride. \u201cWe had to step in and take care of that for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AHomesteader Steve McBride says the government needs to step in to address climate change in Newfoundland and Labrador. (Gavin Simms\/CBC)<\/p>\n

The homesteader said more people are going to have to do the same, and adapt to a changing climate. He also thinks the government has a chance to step up and help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McBride suggested more green spaces, and perhaps subsidizing agricultural operations so they can haul more water if they need to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are the kind of things we might need to look to in the future to make sure that we’re building community resilience, that communities aren’t getting depopulated or emptied out by by climate change,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Download our\u00a0free CBC News app<\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like many in Newfoundland and Labrador, Steve McBride waited through August for the rain to come. Then September…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-90090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}