{"id":186614,"date":"2025-09-28T02:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/186614\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T02:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:13:08","slug":"as-drought-spreads-across-maine-some-wells-are-running-dry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/186614\/","title":{"rendered":"As drought\u00a0spreads across Maine, some wells are running dry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite some rain last week, areas of extreme and severe drought continue\u00a0to spread across the state, according to\u00a0the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A dry summer put parts of Maine five to 10 inches of rain \u201cbehind,\u201d said Nick Stasulis, co-chair of Maine\u2019s Drought Task Force. <\/p>\n

And that won\u2019t be changing anytime soon. Near and long-range forecasts show no signals of drought-reducing rainfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a deficit that large, getting even two, three inches of rain still doesn\u2019t get us out of the woods completely. Like that rain is not a \u2018drought buster,’\u201d Stasulis said.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because when surface water is scarce, it becomes harder and harder for it to move underground and replenish groundwater aquifers. That\u2019s taking its toll on well water supply.<\/p>\n

More than 170 Mainers have reported their wells have run dry this year \u2014 more than the last four years combined, according to the Maine Emergency Management Agency.<\/p>\n

Stasulis said that short, intense periods of rain can help a little, but it depends on the type of well: whether dug and closer to the surface or a deeper, drilled one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a drilled bedrock, it\u2019s likely that you saw little to no improvement, because this water isn\u2019t enough to work its way down into the aquifer and kind of replenish those deeper wells,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Roughly half of Mainers rely on well water.<\/p>\n

The drought affects all 16 counties. Extreme drought conditions now extend all the way across the middle of the state from east to west.<\/p>\n

This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite some rain last week, areas of extreme and severe drought continue\u00a0to spread across the state, according to\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79,7157],"class_list":{"0":"post-186614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-update"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}