The Drought’s Over…Now What?

This week we’ve seen the drought across the Carolinas and Georgia declared over by assorted public officials.  The past six months have brought the water situation back to normal levels in most respects, although groundwater levels and some lakes are still a bit below where they should be.  If our wet weather pattern continues, continued improvement in these values would be expected.

While there’s now a lot less guilt involved in using water to clean the car (or the house, or anything else), we’ve seen with repeated droughts over the past decade that we can’t be too careful with our water usage…what’s here now could be gone next year.  There a couple of things to keep in mind with respect to water usage.

First, these days everyone wants to save some money and lower those bills.  Decreasing your water usage will accomplish that; obviously, the more water you’re using now, the more room there is to drop those bills.

Second, when we’re in a pattern where we are receiving regular rain, go ahead and shut those sprinkler systems off.  Just this Friday morning, less than twelve hours after two storms with very heavy rain passed through my neighborhood, I saw sprinklers in action as I drove to work.  Watering what has already been watered is just wasting water and money.

It’s also bad for your grass.  It turns out that letting your lawn go dormant in hot, dry weather is not a bad thing…and could actually help your grass.  For tips on lawn watering, click here.

The hottest part of the year is coming up…stay cool, and use that water wisely.