DROUGHT: Perdue relaxes water rules
Source: AJC.com By: Stacy Shelton
Summer's not sunk after all. The governor wants to give swimmers and backyard gardeners water.
Gov. Sonny Perdue on Wednesday offered a reprieve from the near-total ban on outdoor watering to the landscape industry, gardeners and thousands of neighborhood swimming pool associations, swim teams and private pool owners.
"Swim, kids, swim," Perdue exhorted at an afternoon news conference in his office.
If local governments agree, pool-filling will be allowed and home and business owners will be able to hand-water landscaping and flower gardens for 25 minutes a day, between midnight and 10 am, on a three-day-week schedule. Watering with sprinklers would still be banned, except for watering newly installed landscapes.
A start date has not been set, and local governments could decide to keep the restrictions in place. They may need to: cities and counties still will have to meet the state-mandated 10 percent reduction in water use, although it will be seasonally adjusted.
Starting April 1, the new baseline will be the average amount of water used from April to September, when usage can be twice as high as in the winter months, mostly due to sprinkling lawns.
The governor's decision comes even as the record-breaking drought continues to bear down on metro Atlanta and much of North Georgia. Some local officials said the easing of restrictions doesn't send the right message in a record-breaking drought and will be all but unenforceable.
"My bet is that metro Atlanta will return to business as usual with regard to outdoor watering," said Sall Bethea, executive director of Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, and environmental advocacy group.
The exceptionally dry conditions are only expected once every century, state Environmental Protection Division Director Carol Couch said. Recent rain has made barely a dent.
Lake Lanier, metro Atlanta's main source of drinking water, is still perilously close to its all-time low at a time when it should be refilling. Perdue's decision puts local governments in a political conundrum.
Rob Hunter, commissioner of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management, said: "We're saying we're serious about conservation. On the other hand, we're saying we're going to let this [sector] use more water over the summer...I'm concerned about mixed messages here."
Just last month, Atlanta said it would not let the Dogwood Festival, Peachtree Road Race and other large festivals use Piedmont Park this year because workers are not allowed to water the lawns. City officials will have to decide whether to relax the restrictions as suggested by the governor, Hunter said. But he added that the intricate set of rules "is going to make enforcement a nightmare."
As proposed, everyone would be allowed to hand-water on the limited schedule. For newly installed landscaping, sprinkling will be allowed for three days a week from midnight to 10am for 10 weeks. That's true even for a homeowner who plants a single bush.
The caveat is that those folks will have to register with the Outdoor Water Use Registration Program and take an online class to learn about water conservation at the Urban Agriculture Council's Web site, . The class will be available online March 1, EPD spokesman Kevin Chambers said. Materials also will be available through county extension service offices.
The three-day schedule for watering is the permanent one: Odd-numbered addresses can water on Tues., Thurs., and Sun., and even-numbered addresses can water on Mon., Wed., and Sat., only during the allowed hours.
The governor said he hasn't decided whether to let fountains run this summer, including the popular tourist destination in Centennial Olympic Park. Perdue said easing the outdoor watering ban - in place in the northern third of Georgia since Sept. 28 - isn't a mixed message.
"I think Georgians have done their part," Perdue said. Communities have reduced their water use by about 15 percent this winter, creating a "culture of conservation," he said.
Perdue also said that the state cannot conserve its way out of the drought. "But we want to do the right thing," he said. "We want to send the right signal to our neighbors in Florida and Alabama. This small relaxation doe snot diminish that one iota."
Also Wednesday, Perdue signed the state's first water plan, setting in motion a three-year process to plan for water sharing in the state. In making his decision, Perdue considered the amount of water used to sprinkle lawns and fill swimming pools. The 61-county area in North Georgia that's under the state's outdoor watering ban uses between 800 million and 900 million gallons of water every day. EPD director Couch said it takes about 7 million gallons a day for the 6,500 public pools and 92,000 private pools, or less than 1 percent of the total water use.
Allowing the limited lawn and landscape watering will use an estimated 80 million gallons of water a day, or as much as 10 percent of last summer's total.
"This isn't opening everything back up," Couch said. "We're opening a narrow limit of additional outdoor water use" and then only if local governments agree.
Perdue said that is the drought continues to worsen and water use spikes, the restrictions may need to be reimposed.
"I'm trusting people to do the same thing," he said.
Perdue's announcement came one day after a federal appellate court in Washington threw out a 2003 agreement that would have guarenteed metro Atlanta about 65 percent more water out of Lake Lanier for up to 20 years. At the same time, Georgia continues negotiating with Alabama and Florida to meet a Feb. 15 deadline for a water-sharing deal that will determine how much water is released from Lanier.
Perdue announced the new landscaping rules at the Georgia Agribusiness Council's annual legislative breakfast in downtown Atlanta. He said restrictions should revive the landscaping industry and its $8 billion contribution to Georgia's economy.
Mary Kay Woodworth, president of the Georgia Urban Agricultural Council of landscapers, growers and retail garden centers, said: "Overall as an industry, we are very, very pleased...We think it will be enough to get people back in there confidently buying plants."
Swim teams also had been lobbying elected officials in recent week to exempt swimming pools.
"We are thrilled," said Frank Marsden, league coordinator for the Atlanta Swimming Association, which includes about 90 teams that swim throughout Fulton, DeKalb and Forsyth counties, almost exclusively in outdoor pools. "I have 25 kids I am coaching right now, and 15 of them have jobs this summer now" as lifeguards and coaches. "They are very excited about that."
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