Watering Ban Going To Be Eased
I see while I was gone this past week the Governer has decided to ease up on the water ban, anyone know or hear on the news when it will actually take affect? I havent been able to watch the news for Atlanta while we were gone. Here is the story off 11alive.com
Gov. Sonny Perdue said Wednesday he wants to allow people in Georgia’s 61 drought-stricken counties to be able to water their lawns and outdoor plants again, and fill and maintain public and private swimming pools again.
“We will reduce the restrictions on outdoor watering in Georgia,” Gov. Perdue said to applause at a Wednesday morning agriculture-industry conference in Atlanta.
Technically, the governor is not the one lifting the ban on outdoor water use; he is authorizing local governments to lift the ban – the ban he required them to impose only about four months ago.
The ban will stay in place until and unless local communities lift it.
“Let me be clear,” he said in Atlanta Wednesday, “the state will not, must not, usurp the authority of local governments and their role and responsibility of ensuring clean drinking water…. But I do call on our local water authorities to work with us to allow these exemptions in their communities.”
Governor Perdue’s proposed outdoor water use exemptions:
Swimming pools: “So, swim, Kids, swim!” he said in his office Wednesday afternoon, endorsing the health benefits of swimming, especially among children, and decrying the potential of unused swimming pools creating mosquito-infested health hazards.
Lawns and Outdoor Plants: But only with hand-held hoses, up to 25 minutes a day, three days a week. “It’s certainly going to be on the honor system,” he said.
New Landscaping: Up to three days a week, for up to ten weeks, in order to get the new sod and plants and trees started. After that, they could be watered by hand, 25 minutes a day, three days a week. Homeowners or landscapers would have to register the new landscaping project online, on a state website that would be established to keep track of the watering.
“This action will give consumers confidence to buy and to plant new dogwoods, daisies, maples, magnolias, and anything else that they want to beautify with.”
The governor said he wants the state to get out of the way of the landscaping industry and allow the businesses a chance to bounce back after a disastrous autumn when the watering bans took effect.
“Frankly, this industry did more than its share. It bore a lot of the brunt of the conservation measures last fall… but it’s wrong to put most of that burden on one industry,” Perdue said.
The catch is this – he is still requiring local communities in the 61, north Georgia counties that are in a Level Four drought to cut their overall water use by ten percent each month, compared with the same month in 2007; but, according to Georgia’s EPD, the limited outdoor water use the governor is proposing would increase overall water consumption in those counties by nearly eleven percent.
So, the local governments would have to find other ways to reduce overall consumption, in order to allow for the additional outdoor water use the governor wants.
Overall water use in those 61 counties is about 800 million gallons a day. Allowing limited outdoor watering again would consume an extra 80 million gallons a day. Allowing for swimming pools would consume, on average, an extra seven million gallons a day, May through October.
The governor believes consumer demand, and his own powers of persuasion, will convince local governments to find a way to do both -- reduce overall consumption, and let people turn their outdoor faucets back on.
“I will call on and emphasize to local governments, hoping they can support this action locally as we remain under the ten percent reduction cap, seasonally adjusted,” said Perdue.
The long-term weather forecast, he pointed out, is that the drought will continue into the Spring, at least.
“I’m still praying for rain,” he said.
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