my only hope is, if we have edible landscaping and the rest xeriscaped, our entire yard is considered our personal garden, thus we can water responsibly?

My hope is my rain barrels, and eventually my CISTERN! Ohh, I can't wait to get a 6,000 gallon cistern thrown in the back. Not kidding when I say one really great rain will fill me up, I get so much water from the upper properties. I now no longer use my hose water for anything at all, except when they come to do work on the house. Even then I hate to see them use tap water to run the pressure washer (when they just painted) or wash up their paint brushes. If my rain barrel water was clearer I'd insist they use it.

GGG

GGG, where are you getting your cistern from? Will it be underground or overground?
My husband has installed all our gutter pipes so that all the run-off collects into one big pipe. We are thinking about how best to capture it all, apart from a line of rain barrels.

How about a covered "swimming pool" (a/k/a cistern)??
If rainfall becomes inadequate to keep it full, you are allowed to refill it from your water provider(Grrr!)
A 20'x30' pool with average depth of 10', will hold 6000 cu.ft. of water, or about 45,000 gals. Almost enough to pump an inch of water on two acres of land.
Just a crazy idea that's been in the back of my mind every since they announced the relaxation of the outdoor watering edict.
Rb

I hope they are wrong! I'm about to enter the 3rd trimester of my pregnancy and I really don't want to worry about my plants not getting enough rain. This year, I chose plants that did well in our drought last year, but I also have a few extras that might not make it without rain.

Do you ever think that these guys tend to be on the negative-side with their reports to bring more attention to themselves? I know the news works that way...

All I can say is that I drove over the lake yesterday and it SEEMED to be getting a lot deeper. I think it's gone up a couple of feet in the past few weeks.

Of course, if the regular rain stops, then it will start lowering again.

The situation seems better further south in my area; however, I am not taking any chances. Everything in the front is now drought-tolerant, with the exception of a few containers right by the front door. And, I haven't even started landscaping the back yet, so it just does what it wants. But, when I get to it, everything back there will be drought-tolerant or edible too.

Related question: we have a 24x36 shop in back of our house that my dad built years ago. He built a large pit in it, with sealed block, to be able to drive a car over to work under it. There are problems with it though and it collects water when it rains. A LOT of water. As in...have to pump it out over our backyard or it would flood the shop. This is a HORRIBLE waste and, to me, we've got a perfect cistern here. My question is, how can we get the water out, and usable. Pumping it out is just that...a flood of water over our backyard. It is located at the top of our grade, which is good. But, we cannot figure out how to get the water out...and above the ground...and then through hoses. Neither me nor my hubby is a civil engineer, and we have not been able to get any civil engineers to help anyway. Three we have contacted tell us to fill the thing with dirt over a period of two years or so (to let it settle as it's filled), then cover with concrete and move on. That seems like a waste too! Any suggestions?

mk87...
What you need is a shallow well, self priming pump, which will lift water up to 25 feet. The input/output water connections will usually be ½" pipe thread. Use a regular faucet at the pump or at the end of a pipe extention to allow a garden hose connection. Make sure the faucet is open before starting the motor, as backpressure can damage it. You will also need a fine mesh screen filter on the input pipe at the bottom of the cistern, to prevent any debris from entering the pump.
The electrically operated pumps will normally have a motor of ½ horsepower or less, which require about the same amount of power as 4-100 watt incandescent light bulbs. A regular wall mounted electrical switch may be utilized to turn the motor on/off, as needed.
First order of business though, seems to be the installation of an overflow pipe, to keep the water from flooding the shop. The inlet should be about 6" below the floor level and pipe size should be at least 6" in diameter and slope away from the shop.
If you have or plan to install gutters on the shop and divert the water into the cistern, you will need a much larger or multiple overflow pipes.
If you have an area below the level of the shop where you could build a retention pond to capture the overflow water, you could extend the drain pipe into it and create a water garden and use bog plants around the perimeter.
I have seen the pumps at home Improvement stores occasionally, but it is not an item they regularly stock, apparently. A farm suppy store is probably a better source.
If there isn't a handyman in the family that can do the work, make sure you engage a WELL QUALIFIED irrigation systems installer to do the work. Insist they furnish several references and CHECK them out and provide you with a written and endorsed warranty. I have seen some extremely shoddy and inadequate workmanship performed by supposedly professional companies, costing a homeowner thousands and never worked properly. All attempts to have them correct the problems were fruitless.
Rb

Although what he says is true, it sounds more serious when you include October and November which were less than half of normal rainfall. The last 5 months have been at or above normal rainfall at Lake Lanier.
We need to do our part to conserve and the gov. needs to do its part to provide more water sources/storage and conserve what we have.
Water usage is more complicated than it seems. For example, if you let your hose run into the gutter or your shower run forever, almost no water is lost. It seems wasteful but, it is piped to a river or water treatment plant with virtually no evaporation.
I don't have the answers and I don't hear anyone else who has a plan that makes sense.

razorback33 -- THANK YOU. That is the most detailed info anyone has given me yet and we have had people actually to come out there and all they do is sort of scratch their heads. (Or they tell me to fill it up with dirt.) I am going to make this happen, dang it.

Steve, some of us are on septic tanks and the water is not returned to the system. But it does go back out into my yard eventually as the tank distributes it into the drain field.

Thanks for sharing this.
We lost SO much of our landscape...that its just depressing....
I am one to scrimp and save on life to buy tons of plants and they are all gone now..

So.... we are thinking about some unusual things like bath tub water?
Is it possible to reroute a drain? I have access to my tub because it has jets etc..
What about washing machine water, can we squeeze some water from that?

And..is this all legal :O
Thanks if anyone knows!!!

Ellen, That is one of the many complications. Those with septic systems do not have their used water recycled in a quick way as do those on sewer systems. The septic "recyling" takes place very slowly as the drainage evaporates and eventually falls as rain (elsewhere). The part that does not eveporate, slowly becomes part of the ground water and is absorbed by plants (eveporates again) or is pumped out for irrigation or by wells.

Unfortunately this report may be right. May has only just started, and Lake Lanier level has already gone down for the first time in months. And there is not much rain in the forecasts.

Here is a link that might be useful: Georgia Lake Levels

Sweetmelon, interesting data.
Out of the 10-12 lakes in mid to north Georgia Lake Lanier stands out at 13' low. The only other lake that is low at all is Hartwell 7.5' low. If the drought were the main cause, more of the lakes would be low since the drought affects the entire area. It seems more of a distribution problem. All of metro Atlanta can't be supplied from only Lake Lanier. There are lakes east, south, west and north that can contribute to those corresponding parts of metro Atlanta. Just like roads that are built to accommodate more people, we have to provide additional water if we allow more population here. That is part of the infrastructure that we pay taxes for.
I followed the Lanier info on the site and it says that Lanier will lose only about 2" in May. That's not too bad.

Did you notice what was missing last year?
Hurricanes/Tropical storms in the Gulf, making landfall on the Southern states. Only one came by in early September, contributing only about 1" of water. Most of the rainfall went to the north of GA.
This year, predictions are for 15 named Tropical storms, eight of those will be Hurricanes, w/4 reaching Category 3-4-5. The Gulf coast is predicted to receive 160% of normal activity.
Wonder if the prognosticators have factored in a busy Hurricane season?

It's been explained before why lakes like Allatoona can be full while Lanier is not. As you can see in the linked article, Allatoona is smaller so it fills up faster.

And you can see that Allatoona supplies the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority and Cartersville. We get our water from Cherokee County Water which draws from Etowah, not Lanier. So while Lanier supplies a lot of people, it is certainly not the source for all of metro Atlanta.

Here is a link that might be useful: AJC article

Lanier water is not only used for Atlanta, it's main purpose was to regular flow in the Chattahoochie. They have to keep the flow of that river at a certain pace for Alabama and Florida downstream. So even if it rains and it fills up, it's going to go slower than the other lakes.

I have noticed driving over it yesterday that it looks like it's getting fuller.

An update on this: today's paper had an article that the recent abundant rains have allowed us to move from "exceptional" to "extreme" drought. However, when I checked the drought monitor map today, it actually shows the metro area in "severe" drought, an even better position!

Here is a link that might be useful: Drought Monitor map

I noticed that too esh. And the lake does look like it's filling up. And it's raining again! Yeah! At least I don't have to water.