Arizona family toils to save thirsty livestock, wildlife amid drought

By Angela Cara Pancrazio
June 10, 2002
The Arizona Republic

ANDERSON MESA — In good years, when snowmelt feeds the springs near Flying M Ranch, siblings Jack and Kit Metzger pat their water truck on the hood, disconnect the battery and tell the 1971 diesel lummox it's a good truck.

In bad years, when winter's blue skies and endless sunshine are harbingers of bleak, dry months ahead, they change the 4,000-gallon water truck's dust-clogged fuel filter about as often as they brush their teeth to keep it running.

This is a bad year.

It is the second-driest summer in 108 years. In Flagstaff, mandatory water restrictions are in effect through the summer. Normally, utilities director Ron doba says, 70 percent of the town's water comes from Upper Lake Mary. This year the town is drawing from well water only. Doba can't tap the lake unless it's an emergency.

Southeast of Flagstaff, the livestock and wildlife that roam Anderson Mesa's 426,000 acres rely heavily on water holes fed by snowmelt. but many have dried up and are now as dangerous as tar pits to thirsty elk, deer and antelope

Jack Metzger, 53, says he recently found the skull and rib cage of an elk. In its search for water, the animal got stuck in a dried-up watering hole.

"The clay turns into bubble gum," he says. "It just sucks them down."

With the help of volunteers from Diablo Trust, a public-private land management group based in Flagstaff, the Metzgers have placed water tank and tub combinations across the land and are covering wells and fencing off dry ponds and watering holes.

As Jack caps off the tanks, Kit, 46, steers her pickup down the road to check on more cattle.

"Whoa," she says, as she eyes the parched landscape, "this has gone down since the last time."

She grabs her camera. Kit is constantly documenting the land's many faces.

On this day, along a swath of high-desert clay on the Flying M Ranch, the soil has surrendered. The drought has carved a mosaic into the land. Only tiny pools of water remain.

A calf looks like a frightened child as it tiptoes in mud to get a drink.

"That's the problem we had in '96," Kit says. "They wouldn't drink, they would get scared of the mud. And when they're stuck, man are they stuck. You need a couple of horses and a pickup. If a cow gets on their back, they'll die.

"Tonight I'll lock them out of here."

Listening to the land

The last time the Flying M's brother and sister duo hauled water from daybreak through dusk was summer 1996. Jack hauled 1.6 million gallons of water for cattle and wildlife that year he spent nearly $60,000 doing so. The Flying M Ranch pumps water from nearby Kinnikinick Lake, where the Metzgers have water rights. Operating costs are tallied in fuel, wages, tires, truck repairs, portable tubs, pumps and hoses.

This year is already worse.

The Metzgers know this because they are listening to what the land is telling them -- listening, they say, because that is the single most import! ant ranching lesson their daddy taught them before he died.

Kit remembers her father's words of wisdom: "Watch your animals, they'll tell you a lot about the land. Be observant. Never be set in a system because Grandpa did it this way."

Hungry and thirsty

Despite facts, figures and mandatory water restrictions, the Metzgers gauge the drought's severity much like their ancestors did in the early 1900s every day nature hands them a new message.

Like the calf bawling outside their door.

In times of drought, mothers wander off, leaving calves to fend for themselves. Black and white big-eyed Junior, as Kit calls the calf, is hungry.

She obliges with a large milk bottle. The sucking sound blends with the cacophony of backyard turf battles between squawking hens laying eggs, roosters and barking dogs.

As Junior finishes the last drop of milk, Kit turns to the trees. The elk and antelope have champed on the fruit tree leaves and limb! s and chewed at the lawn.

Jack says that because forage is lack ing, herons and kingfishers have devoured the goldfish that keep the water storage pond clean.

At another watering spot, Jack notes how much water has been used.

"They drank 4,000 gallons since 6 o'clock last night," he says.

No surprise to the Metzgers cows drink 10 to 20 gallons of water a day.

What people don't realize, Kit says, is that a cow's body makeup is much like a human's: It is 80 percent water. So when cows start drinking less than they should, they do not perform. Drought conditions are the worst for breeding.

Vow to survive

During the weekends, volunteers help the Metzgers build water tanks. They are mostly from the Diablo Trust.

"With this drought," Jack says, "we are trying desperately to stay ahead of it so everyone has a drink of water."

On this day, the sunburned, weary Metzgers are alone. As they get ready to refill storage tanks and drinking tubs scattered across their 90,000-acre ranch, the land's! resounding voice speaks.

Normally, Jack's chocolate Labrador retriever, Hannah, is his passenger. There's a visitor today so he sprays air from a compressor through the truck's cab. Dust funnels whirl like dervishes.

"That's a drought carwash," he jokes.

The situation is dire, so levity is a must. It keeps them going.

They vow they will survive the drought.

"You can't pack up and leave," Kit says. "It takes 20 years to see what the land is like -- the land has many faces."

After all, she says, their family has been farming and ranching Arizona since the late 1890s, when a Boston doctor told her great-grandmother stricken with tuberculosis: "Go West or die."

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