South Carolina Water Guilt

I have a guilty feeling. I live in South Carolina 20 miles from the Georgia state border in the Savannah basin. 20 miles away Georgia has an outdoor water ban. 20 miles away Georgians in the same watershed as me are counting drops of water. Yesterday, there was neither a voluntarily or mandatory ban on my family's water use. I could wash my car, water the grass, or even bring out the slip n' slide. I could even do it all the same time every day, every hour, and every minute.

Guilt is a bad feeling. Give me happy, give me sad, but not that guilty feeling. Our North Carolina and Georgia neighbors are making do with less and yet we are blessed with plenty of water. It also helps that as a state, we are not as big as Georgia and North Carolina. For example, there are more people living in the Atlanta area than live in the entire State of South Carolina. While there are 23 water systems throughout the State of South Carolina that had mandatory restrictions, there was no state mandate to conserve water until yesterday.

I guess the guilty feeling was too much. South Carolina Governor, Mark Sanford, announced yesterday that he is encouraging all South Carolinians to voluntarily conserve water.

"As this situation continues, we believe it's incredibly important for all South Carolinians to take individual initiative in doing what they can to conserve water. We think these conservation recommendations from DNR are a good step toward that end, and would urge citizens to do what they can at home or at work to impact their own water usage."

-Gov. Mark Sanford

State and local representatives from the South Carolina Drought Response Committee upgraded the drought level to severe for all counties except Beaufort and Jasper on Sept. 5. Drought conditions have continued to deteriorate with significant impacts to most of the streams, lakes, and groundwater. According to the SC Department of Natural Resources’ Hydrology Office, 14 of the 17 monitored streams are now at the extreme drought level.

Water Systems in SC with Restrictions