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State Restricts Outdoor Water Use: Drought Level One Means No Watering From 10 A.M.-4 P.M.

Posted on: Thursday, 22 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

By S. Heather Duncan, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Jun. 22--ATLANTA -- The director of the state Environmental Protection Division declared a level one drought throughout Georgia on Wednesday, triggering new residential and commercial watering restrictions.

Under Georgia's drought-management plan, there are four levels of drought. Level one, the lowest, includes a ban on outdoor watering between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. all days of the week. Level four is a complete outdoor watering ban.

The existing statewide odd-even watering restrictions still apply, too. Even-numbered addresses may water Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Odd-numbered addresses may water Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. No watering is permitted on Fridays to give water systems time to recharge before the high-demand weekend period.

The conservation restrictions focus on residential watering because as much as 60 percent of summer household water use is outside, EPD Director Carol Couch said.

The drought declaration came after a meeting of the State Drought Response Committee, a panel of state, regional and federal officials, academics and representatives of nongovernmental organizations, who decide how to respond to extended dry conditions in any of the state's nine climate regions.

Couch had originally recommended declaring a level one drought just for Region 2, which includes most of Atlanta as well as north central Georgia. She said reservoir levels in other parts of the state remained high enough that restrictions weren't needed there.

Region 2 is at greatest risk mostly because of the extremely low water levels in Lake Lanier, EPD officials said. Last weekend, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admitted that it allowed 22 billion gallons of water to be released by mistake from the reservoir. The state filed a request for a temporary restraining order against the corps Wednesday. Couch said Lake Lanier will soon be so low that the Chattahoochee River must be allowed to run directly through it, with no water being held back for storage.

The drought-response committee unanimously agreed to go beyond Couch's recommendation, extending the drought beyond Atlanta for several reasons.

Among them: Unless weather patterns change, the entire Middle Georgia area could be in a severe agricultural drought within seven to 10 days, said state climatologist David Stooksbury. Agricultural droughts are precursors to larger-scale droughts that cause surface water and groundwater levels to drop.

In addition, the releases from Lake Lanier affect the whole Chattahoochee River basin, which covers two other climate zones. One of these covers Monroe, Crawford, Peach and other counties in the western portion of Middle Georgia.

"To focus just on the metro area I think is not telling the whole story," said Pat Stevens, environmental planning chief for the Atlanta Regional Commission. "If you're going to ask people in the headwaters to save so people downstream can waste, that's not the right approach."

Roy Fowler, general manager of the Cobb-Marietta Water Authority, urged the committee to support statewide restrictions and better educate the public about efficient watering.

"All we're giving up is watering during the worst possible time of day," said Fowler, whose organization sells water wholesale to cities and counties that serve 750,000 customers. "During the drought of '98, more plants were lost to root rot from overwatering than to the drought itself."

He said water providers should already be enforcing the existing odd-even restrictions. He noted that Cobb County has issued about 100 citations to violators, mostly people watering on Fridays.

The Macon Water Authority does not issue citations with fines. Authority Director Tony Rojas said Tuesday he could not remember which day of the week watering is banned.

Some local governments already have increased restrictions, mostly due to water pressure loss. Among them is Houston County, which doesn't allow outdoor watering between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. It was unclear whether this would change in light of the new state watering restrictions, because efforts to reach Houston County officials Wednesday evening were unsuccessful.

Although the Flint River drainage basin uses the lion's share of water in the state, it's too late to trigger additional restrictions on farmers there this year, said Nap Caldwell, an EPD senior water planning and policy adviser.

Under the Flint River Drought Protection Act, the EPD director must decide by March 1 whether to declare a severe drought in the Flint basin. The declaration allows state payments to farmers who refrain from irrigating with surface water.

But this spring, weather predictions for the Flint were too uncertain to support a severe drought designation, Couch said at the time. The designation can't be made later because farmers have already planted their crops.

Stooksbury said he could not predict the length of the drought. But if it worsens, the committee may meet again to consider a more severe drought declaration.

To contact writer S. Heather Duncan, call 744-4225 or e-mail hduncan@macontel.com [mailto:hduncan@macontel.com].

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

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