Swimming pools? A luxury in my book, not necessary for plant or animal life. I wish he'd not be so fast about all this. We've had good rain lately, but no WAY is the drought over nor are the lakes and reservoirs back up to normal.

When's he up for re-election?

Yes, I agree anney. But the swimming pool industry was lobbying hard against that restriction because they saw what happened to the landscape industry. Apparently according to the data they pulled together, maintaining the water in swimming pools (that is, topping them off because of evaporation), uses less than one percent of the water:

In making his decision, Perdue considered the amount of water used to sprinkle lawns and fill swimming pools. The 61-county area in north Georgia that's under the state's outdoor watering ban uses between 800 million to 900 million gallons of water every day. EPD Director Couch said it takes about 7 million gallons a day for the 6,500 public pools and 92,000 private pools, or less than one percent of the total water use.

Allowing the limited lawn and landscape watering will use an estimated 80 million gallons of water a day, or as much as 10 percent of last summer's total.

"This isn't opening everything back up," Couch said. "We're opening a narrow limit of additional outdoor water use" and then only if local governments agree.

Parents and the industry stressed that children need swimming pools for recreation in this "land-locked area". In addition to just frolicking, there are a lot of swim teams too.

I heard the news conference last night about the swimming pool issue. Perdue said that it was more of a health and safety hazard to close pools...which would create stagnant water and increase the mosquito population. That's the last thing I want!!

Unless you are in one of the areas that get water from Laneer, I doubt Gov. Purdue's decision will make much difference. To me he is pushing the bad guy job off to local officials. Is that leadership?

Our county was put on total outdoor water ban long before the folks in nearby areas that use Laneer as a source. I doubt anything will change any time soon. Unless we get lots of rain.

efam

If mosquitoes are a problem, all they have to do is drain the pools or cover them and keep them heavily chlorinated -- that does kill mosquito larvae. I really believe Georgians need the water more than swimming pools need it.

Mosquito dunks kill mosquitoes anywhere there is standing water, including swimming pools.
I got issues with Perdue. Why on EARTH would you let people fill their pools full of chemicals that evaporate into the air, or poison the soil if it leaches out of the pool, but not allow watering of plants which protect the enviornment and hold in the soil against erosion?
At least he isn't letting people use sprinkler systems.
How about asking many other companies/manufacturers etc. to regulate their water usage? Something he has not done!!

FL

You have got to be kidding me. Swimming pools are not going to count as outside watering? I wonder how many million gallons of water go into metro pools? I will go along with the "very little used to top off" these pools but I wonder what impact it will have when they are all filled in the first place this spring/summer. Just a thought as I watch the lake drain in front of my very eyes! Gee, sure am GLAD my neighbors can fill their pool so they do not have to bother walking down to the lake...

Existing pools are not drained for the winter and then refilled in the spring. In fact most pools should be full now due to the recent rains.

i'm glad to hear it's eased up some;but my well is still dry.i dropped a rock in it yesterday and hit mud.

Ah, that makes more sense if all pools are not drained. All of the ones around me, however, are. Could it have something to do with the fact that most of them are salt-water pools?

If a gunite pool is drained and left for any time at all it will start to crack. Pools are not really salt water. They are sterilized by salt and it takes very little to do so. It would be like swimming in an ocean if they were salt water. And that is not fun for very long. Burns your eyes, nose and drys your skin.
I would like to know where you are that people drain the pools except to repaint or regunite and refill it right away. A vinyl pool may possibly be drained but the sides would cave in over time. Not a good idea.
Pools are treated in the winter with chemicals to carry them over til the spring. Some are drained just below the skimmer to prevent pipes from freezing. But no farther. In the spring you just add some water and more chemicals. Even if the pool is green with algae you do not have to drain it. It takes more chemicals to adjust the fresh water than to clean and adjust the algae.
Sorry I got carried away. I have a pool. But given the choice I would fill half of in with dirt.
Just save enough room for my physical therapy.
Which is why we built it.
But that cost several thousand dollars unless someone wants to give me about 50+ tons of dirt. A new end wall and replumbing of all the filtering system. Another $10,000 or so.

We have been water restricted for years, and totally banned way before other areas. I think we lost all our water first actually?
I'm thinking we wont get to water anything at all as usual.

I think thats why I literally lost 7 years of landscaping. The landscapes here just had no hope.

I had to laugh when I heard the news anchor say they want us to shop for plants with confidance?????????
A little late for my plants and REALLY late for Pikes?

I'm just hoping for rain rain rain :)

toile...

Sorry to hear that.. As well as the back guy who uses the pool for therapy.

Luckilly, my "farm" is less than half an acre, and I can water that by hand on a couple rain barrells..
I even grow an upwards of 40 kinds of plants, maybe more.\

Luckilly, I;ve learned to grow for food and care, not mass plantings... I would be sad for myself as I am sad for you, and all, who lost plants to "last summers" drought.

NOW IS THE TIME.

Get rain barrells, lots of them.. get a well NOW while these awesome early spring rains are coming.

And get out the slingshot when your nieghbor comes and tries to drain your well for his stupid pine and oak trees, or his lame ugly mass agriculture.

The truth is... water is free, you have to COLLECT IT.

When lake lanier is at one inch deep and all the fish are dead, who will have water? THE RAIN

think rain folks...\

I suppose we can still water our veggie gardens? and use stored water, whenever?
The 25 minutes of hand watering, 3 days per week, is better than none at all, but totally inadequate to irrigate all of my plants during long periods between rainfall.
With the low water pressure that I've always had, it would require about 23 weeks to apply 1 inch of water to all of my plants. I was barely able to keep up under Level 2 restrictions, when I could water 30 hours per week and I have never watered my lawn. If the grass dies, more space for flowering plants, when the rains return!
After the total ban for 4 months, I hope that most of the plants will return in the spring. The trees are the major concern however. I tried to keep water on their roots from my rainbarrels and pond. Hope that it was enough.

I just went to the Gwinnett county web page for a review of the restriction rules. The rules still allow for irrigation of personal vegetable gardens and for sprinkler watering of your lawn after it has been treated by the lawn maintence company. maybe other metro atl counties are similar?

I may need to start another thread but does anyone know if theres a chance my thousands of plants will come back?
They all completely dissapeared or turned into brown sticks.
Basically for 7 years my hubby and I spent every spare penny at garden shops. We were like obcessed LOL. EVERYTHNG seem gone except :
Monkey grass
fountain grass
Leyland Cypress (for privacy)
Bermuda seems sort of ok?
Knock Out roses

I seem to have lost almost 90% of what I had, no kidding.
I cant spend the rest of my life buying knock out roses and monkey grass :O
I had some really cool stuff from The Pottery, Growers Outlet and stuff shared from friends etc...

I doubt I will buy a single plant this year and just buy 2 rain barrells.
We have looked and looked and the placement of them cant be hidden from the neighbors either?
Need to start a thread on that too! LOL

You can look at it this way. If your kids are swimming in the pool - they can skip showering. That will save some water...

BTW, I grew up with rain barrel and we cook and clean with water from rain barrel!

toile, did your knockout roses turn brown before or after the frosts?
The knockouts in the landscape at my job turned brownish after the last frost, but have put out some lovely new green twiggy growth even in just a week or two. It is about time to prune them back, and hopefully they will be fine for you.
Did you ammend the soil well before you planted everything? One of my leylands shows some damage, but 4 are just fine. Eventually I want to replace those with a better screening material, but they have finally grown just tall enough to screen out my neighbors broken shed and back yard trash around it. The idea of starting all over again....
Thuja green giant has shown to be very drought resistant in my landscape. The little one I planted two years ago is looking fab. The leyland up in that area died and is totally brown.

And remember all, if you do not buy plants at all, you might not have the opportunity to buy the in the near future in Georgia. To support the landscape and plant industry in this state you need to put a little cash towards it. The businesses simply can not stay in business with no customers. This will effect you in the future as those professionals will loose everything and won't be able to have the start up cash to begin a new venture if things get better for us. A lot of the businesses are really there to help you and themselves with excellent plant choices - container plants, irrigation assistance, mulches etc.

GGG

I agree with the Governor's idea. Pools are a "drop in the bucket" compared to automatic sprinklers. I would see sprinklers running at 11AM rain or shine, all because folks would plant cool season turf. Lawns alone are 10% of the water consumption.

They are still giving some preference to homeowners using professional landscapers. If you're willing to pay the labor rates, you're rewarded with water!