The Great Georgia Drought

Hi, I can't believe it's been more than 2 years since I last blogged. Lots of things have happened, but lots are still the same.

Right now the big thing is the drought. I live in North Georgia, and we are in an 'exceptional' drought. You can see this on the drought monitor here. Basically it hasn't rained as it normally does in this area. The last rain was over 10 days ago. And we had a much hotter summer than normal, even for 'Hotlanta'. Plus this area is booming, adding tens of thousands of new people each year. Something had to give.

Our main water source is Lake Lanier. It's a man made lake that was made from the damed up Chattahoochee River in 1957. The dam is the Buford Dam and I drive over it every day when I go to work. They have this nice little electronic sign with the water level, so every day I can see how much it's dropped and fret over it. Today it was about 1054 feet, down from a high of 1080 feet. The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) posted a pictorial essay of the depleted lake on it's website today. Quite startling. Most of the pictures were of the north end of the Lake, which I don't get to see. But the view I get each morning and evening isn't much better.

To make matters worse, the Army Corp of Engineers (the same guys who brought us the New Orleans levees) which built and maintains Buford Dam, has to release a certain amount of water each day to ensure a flow of water down the Chattahoochee all the way to Florida to make sure some muscles have enough water. Heaven forbid the muscles have to deal with a drought. Alabama also depends on a certain amount of water from the Lake. You've probably read about the fighting between the Governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida over water. They went to DC to hash it out. Our governor, Sonny Perdue, has even called for a prayer service to help.

Depending on who you listen to, the Metro Atlanta area has either 120 days of water left, or more, or less...Once the lake gets below the 'dead zone' it would be very expensive to pump the water out (it would be below the current outtakes) and that water is not potable and would have to be treated. Still I guess it's better than nothing.

Besides the obvious, the drought concerns me because one of the changes over the past 2 years is that I now have over 75 rose bushes. Yes, 75+. It sounds like a lot, but I could have more, trust me. Roses grow really well here, they like the heat, the sun and surprisingly, the clay soil. But they like water too. Up until mid-August, we were on a watering schedule. We could water 3 times a week, from midnight to 10am depending on your street address. Odds could water on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Evens (me) were Saturday, Monday and Wednesday. There was no watering on Friday. So I was keeping everything fairly well watered. And one good thing about clay soil, it hold the water, and if you have enough mulch it will stay moist. Then we were put under a total outdoor water ban, no watering, except for food gardens.

So what does one do with 75 rose bushes and no water? Well you have to get creative. We can use grey water, which is basically water used in sink, bath or shower and trudged downstairs to the yard. And rainwater. Apparently for each inch of rain, you can get 600 gallons of run off for each 1000 sq feet of roof. That's a lot of water. We have 6 downspouts, five of which were buried back when we had too much rain and our yard (and basement) would flood each time we had a downpour. As an experiment, we put a plastic garbage can under the one unburied downspout. During the last brief rain, we collected over 30 gallons from that one downspout. So we ordered two rain barrels from Rain Barrels And More. They are recycled plastic barrels that originally held olives from Argentina (The barrels still had a slight olive scent). The ones we bought come with hose connects and a spigot and a top with a screen. We set them up last week under two downspouts . So far it hasn't rained...but we are using the barrels to store the grey water we are collecting when we take showers. I even had the idea to rig a pvc pipe from our deck down to one of the rain barrels so we don't have to lug the water all the way down to the back yard. We are collecting about 3-4 gallons a day, and hopefully that will get us through the dry spells.

We had our first frost this week.The bemuda grass has gone dormant, as have most of my roses. I deliberately forced them into dormancy by not deadheading them for the past few weeks and not fertilizing. I also have some trees that have been planted in the past year or two that will need watering. This past spring, we planted three Okame Cherry trees which seem to be doing well and hopefully will flower next spring. And we have four cryptomeria and three Little Gem Magnolias that are doing well. I've been supplementing them with water from the shower for weeks. The ground around them is so dry, it's like dust. I have noticed the most of my pines have needles that are turning rust and falling off. I think this is normal, that is where pine straw comes from, but last year I lost one Virginia Pine, and there is another one that doesn't look good. Only time will tell. I can't hand water the 3 dozen or so pine up on the hill.

So that is it for now. I'll try to keep the blog updated with drough news. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?