North Georgia: more menacing, but it gets less mention

You can't help wondering about life's ironic twists, even the small ones.

For example Anaheim, CA, averages a mere 14 inches of rainfall annually. Anaheim was the site of the Irrigation Association Conference and Exhibition this past Nov. 2-4. To everyone's surprise, two of the three mornings of the event, it rained at the Convention Center there.

Meanwhile, I'm talking with Ed Klaas, president of the Georgia Irrigation Association at the event, and he's telling me that Atlanta and the rest of north Georgia, which averages more than 50 inches of rain annually, is still in a drought. In fact, Lake Lanier, the manmade reservoir northeast of Atlanta and the city's primary source of drinking water, is at a record low. It's lower in fact than last December when the local news media was writing almost daily about the lingering dry spell and its affect on the region, and especially on the Green Industry there.

The Atlanta drought, which continues, is now old news. Even the media says so in a recent article in the local press. Click on the headline for the latest on the drought. — Ron Hall