As of July 13, most of Georgia will be able to water their lawns
when they get home from work. The Georgia Environmental
Protection Division announced they are relaxing the statewide
outdoor water-use restrictions to just odd-even use.

In metro Atlanta, however, the 10 a.m.-to-10 p.m. and odd-even
restrictions are still in effect. Metro counties include Bartow,
Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette,
Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Hall, Henry, Paulding and Rockdale.
Rainfall has been abundant in many areas of the state, but in the
metro area, it hasn’t been consistently above average.

“Recent rainfall and everyone’s efforts to conserve water have
helped us move away from immediate threats to our water supply in
most of the state,” said EPD director Harold Reheis.

But Drought’s Not Over

“Full recovery of all our water supply sources, however, is
expected to take a while longer,” Reheis said. “We continue to
record below-average stream flows in many locations around
Georgia. And low levels in several of our groundwater sources
continue to be a major concern.

“Therefore,” he said, “we cannot lift restrictions entirely in
the 144-county area, and we must maintain the current outdoor
water-use restrictions in the 15-county metro Atlanta area for
the near term.”

Local water utilities may also elect to maintain or tighten their
existing restrictions if they deem them necessary to preserve
water supplies. Local utilities don’t need permission from EPD to
tighten restrictions.

For more detailed information, go to the “Drought in Georgia” Web
site at www.georgiadrought.org.