Georgia landscape watering ban prompts green-industry battle

The Southeast’s severe drought triggered a level-4 drought response, which prohibited most outdoor residential water use across the northern third of Georgia. The water ban was declared in late September. The Georgia Urban Agriculture Council (UAC) responded with a lobbying and public relations campaign against the ban.

The council is made up of growers, retailers, landscapers, architects, turf companies and golf courses. The ban did not apply to irrigation for establishing landscapes. However, media coverage in the state did not make that clear, said Mary Kay Woodworth, vice president of UAC.

“Greenhouses and nurseries have already lost millions of dollars worth of product due to lack of sales this summer and now the plants that they have grown for fall planting will go unsold,” she said in a letter to Carol Crouch, director of the Environmental Protection Division at Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Although the state’s level-4 response called for commercial exemptions, including new landscape installation, cities can set their own bans. The city of Canton banned all outdoor watering, Woodworth said.

“Urban agriculture businesses continue to be the only businesses in most of North Georgia who have been penalized,” Woodworth said. “Professional pressure washers clean sidewalks and parking lots daily … breweries and soft drink bottlers have not been required to limit production. Carwashes are operating 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.”

The council has a draft at its Web site for green-industry professionals to use and send to city and county leaders.

Precipitation outlook

A level-4 drought response was declared for all counties in north Georgia from Muscogee County on the Alabama line northeastward to Spalding County, and eastward to Lincoln County on the South Carolina line. The level-4 drought response includes all of metropolitan Atlanta, Rome, Athens and Columbus, but does not include Macon and Augusta.

“The drought of 2007 has reached historic proportions, so it’s critical that we take immediate action to ensure that Georgians have a sufficient supply of safe drinking water,” said Carol Couch, director of the Environmental Protection Division at Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “All of the counties included in the level-4 declaration are located in areas of either exceptional or extreme drought.”

The possibility of edging out of the drought does not look promising.

“During a year of average rainfall, water levels in Georgia’s large reservoirs such as Lanier and Allatoona tend to drop in late summer and then recover as the winter rains arrive,” said state climatologist David Stooksbury. “But the forecast calls for a dry, mild winter, and that could result in serious water supply problems by next spring.”

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For more: Georgia Urban Agriculture Council, (678) 410-6981; www.urbanagcouncil.org.