Living with drought
I saw a notice in this morning’s paper that our county (Athens-Clarke in North Georgia) just declared a Level-4 Drought Response, and is now prohibiting all outdoor water use. We figured the full ban was coming because we’ve been watching full bans issued by one after another of our neighboring counties, with whom we share a water source that is now apparently alarmingly low. Not the kind of low where you worry about a little grass watering. The kind of low where you worry one of these days you’ll turn on the faucet and brown sludge will come out.
This isn’t a sudden occurrence. North Georgia is in her tenth year of drought, give or take. There were a couple of years, there, of close to normal rainfall, but not enough to fill the deficit, so in effect the drought has been continuous for nearly a decade. I moved down here only about a year and half ago, but I can see the effects of of it right here in my little neighborhood with its beleaguered landscaping and dying trees. As I was walking my yard, this morning, taking inventory of newly dead limbs I need to prune, I thought, this is way beyond cosmetics. If mature trees are dying, this is bad. What’s going to happen if this drought continues? Is anybody doing anything to address our water situation, long term?
The answer appears to be no. Georgia’s in it’s tenth year of drought, the state’s population continues to grow at a rate of about 20 percent a year with much of that occurring in North Georgia, and yet at the legislative levels, it’s business as usual. Even as we struggle with an inadequate water supply, this county, for example, has made it clear it’s interested in attracting new residents and new businesses, and indeed, they continue to come, mostly from the Atlanta area. I understand there is a longstanding need to improve our county’s water and wastewater infrastructure but I hear the commissioners have done essentially nothing but talk, for years. I’m still catching up on the history of that issue, but I can see clearly what’s happening with another issue: housing.
We have a glut of housing in this county, a mix of types and ages, and yet the county continues to issue permits for new building. I don’t see where any effort is being made to consider water use in this. Should we be encouraging this kind of “growth” if we can’t sustain what we have? We’re talking about water, here. Not restaurants and shopping malls. Water. You can’t continue with the same development paradigm indefinitely without addressing this, and yet, that’s what appears to be happening here.
As for the developments springing up everywhere, it appears they’re being built as developments have for years: I’m seeing little mixed use, a few townhouse developments, and a lot of single-family tracts. With those, the land is scraped bare, the houses go up, the sod goes down: big lawns that will require lots of water and no trees left to provide shade and slow down evaporation or runoff.
I don’t condone mass condemnation of developers because I know too many who do give a damn. But, I’m thinking out loud about change, wondering how it happens if it happens at all. There is nothing legislatively requiring that these developers include water-conservative features like like water catchment and storage, or greywater recycling, porous driveways to absorb runoff, or even soaker hoses or in-ground sprinkler systems with timers for the landscaping and lawn, and there’s no financial incentive for them to do so because these houses they’re building will eventually sell without those features. The public isn’t clamoring for them, either. At least, not yet.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, long-term. If things get bad enough, people start to holler — mostly because it’s hitting them personally some way, usually in the pocketbook. Whether there’s a water crisis here or not (I’m thinking we’re staring at one now but nobody wants to be the one to say so), drought will likely continue to be an issue. So will population growth. Water will continue to get more expensive, and maybe eventually, there’ll be some large-scale changes in the way we use and think about water, here in Georgia. Those, too, will be expensive.
In the meantime, I’m having an extended epiphany, this summer, that we’re somewhat on our own, here, for the foreseeable future — here in our little 30-year old ranch house — and we either make some further changes with regard to our own water use and storage, or we’re going to be completely at the mercy of the weather and the county. For now, at least, that’s how change is happening: one household at a time. This household.
