Georgia landscapers eye rebound from Southeast drought - Baltimore Business Journal:

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But owners of lawn and gardehn businesses say the return of normal rainfallp will not mean a return tothe water-wasting days of the when homeowners didn’t think twice about turnint on their sprinklers during the heat of the day. They say both economicd and environmental awareness point tonew habits. “We’rwe never going to go back to the way we weredoingb business,” said Mary Kay Woodworth, executive director of the . “We know how to be officially declared the drought over onJune 10, endingy water restrictions that had been in effect in 55 North Georgis counties since September 2007 and returning the region to rules allowing watering on an odd-evebn basis.
Landscapers felt the worsrt impact of the drought restrictions duringy theearly months. Figures compilesd at that time by economists at The University of which won’t be updated until this fall, showed lossees region-wide of $3.2 billion and 35,0090 jobs. The pressure on lawn and garden businesses eased a bit in Marcn 2008 when the General responding to an outcry fromthe industry, passed legislationj allowing many North Georgi water systems to seek waiveras from the state for more lenient wateringf rules.
Still, persistent dry weather coupled with the psychological effect of the restrictions on homeowners kept demand for landscapingb products andservices low, said Peter Speck, head of operationzs at SolTerra Landscape of Sandy Springs. He said his compan y is down to just 13 employeesw after losing about half ofits sales. “Certain portionz of the businessjust disappeared,” Speck said. “Peopl were afraid to spend any money on Speck said another factor dampening enthusiasm for lawn and gardenj projects has beenthe recession, whichh lingers on even as the rainsz are back.
“People in the past were going to lines of credig on their houses or dippingg intosavings [to finance landscaping],” he said. everyone’s saying, ‘Let’s wait and see what will ” Companies that laid off workerz as sales plummeted have had to find ways to maintain productivity withsmaller staffs. “Ww can actually deliver the same throughput with a substantiallty lowerlabor force,” said Ken president and co-owner of in Cartersville, whichn is down to 21 employees from a high of 30 in 2006.
Davic Price, co-owner of in Chamblee, said his company focuses on “hardscape” projects during the building walkways, patios or decks to surround the plants and grasse that could be installed once therainsw returned. “We weathered the drought by repositioninvour company’s business,” he said. But metrk Atlanta homeowners aren’t likely to view the end of the droughg as carte blanche to open up their watee faucetswith abandon. For one thing, wate rates have gone up since the drought began threreyears ago. The city of Atlanta has led the way, raisinfg rates by 27.
5 percent last summer in part to offset a loss of revenu ethe , incurred when customers cut back on wateer use during the drought. Bryan spokesman for the , which represents water utilitiea acrossthe state, said many other systems have increasex rates by double Beyond the economic disadvantages of wastinyg water is a heightened public awareness of the importancse of conservation. Carol Couch, director of the state EnvironmentalProtectiohn Division, noted in liftingg the watering restrictions that Georgians reducedx their water use during the drought beyond what could have been achieveds through mandates alone.
Conservation peaked in May 2008 witha water-use reductioh of 30 percent compared with May of the previous she said.