"It's the lowest it's been in 70 years," Ba said.
Asked why that would be, he shifted nervously for a moment. "We don't yet know the reason," he said.
Pushed for an answer, Ba said there's been no rain and then, with considerable hesitation added, "It's possible that the dam is part of the reason."
He was referring to the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, which sits to the west of this town in southern China's Hubei province. Designed to generate electricity and tame the Yangtze, the longest river in Asia, the controversial dam cost at least $23 billion.
It was seen as a testament to the dramatic power of China's state planning when it was finished in 2006.
Now that legacy is being chipped away as the worst drought in at least half a century unfolds across the Yangtze River region.
The government says that the least rainfall in at least 50 years has affected 3.2 million-plus acres of farmland in seven provinces. In five provinces, 4.2 million people are having trouble finding drinking water. In one province, Hunan, which borders Hubei, rain hasn't been so scarce since 1910, a provincial official told the state Xinhua newswire.
"This is the worst I've ever seen," said Luo Baoqing, 70, a farmer in Hubei who said that if the rains don't come soon, he won't plant rice this season. "Before when there were droughts, we could dig a well, but we've tried drilling two wells this year and there's no water."
State media ran a report last month insisting that rice crops would be fine overall. But it acknowledged that more than 494,000 acres of rice paddies have been affected in Hubei alone, citing the Ministry of Agriculture.
Xinhua quoted specialists saying that the dam had "very little" impact on regional climate conditions and that there is "no evidence that the drought was caused by the dam."
