Birmingham Water Works Board director Mac Underwood told the city council this morning that the Stage 3 drought restrictions should remain in place for the time being, even though recent rain has lessened the crisis for the area. Meanwhile, more than 30 members of the “green industry” (see bonus rant after the jump) came to the council meeting to protest the drought restrictions that they say have hurt their businesses.

According to Underwood, earlier this year the BWWB had enough water for 35 to 45 days of usage before reservoirs such as Lake Purdy would have gone dry. With the rainfall during July, water reserves have improved and the system will not ask for Stage 4 drought restrictions, Underwood said.

Officials said that the system has done a good job managing ahead of one of the worst droughts in the region’s history — much better than the 2000 drought, which triggered the even more stringent drought restrictions.

Current restrictions prohibit all irrigation, except for hand watering on specific days of the week. (For more info on the restrictions, click here.)

“My grass is green right now for the help of the Lord,” councilor Steven Hoyt said.

The members of the “green industry” said that their businesses were suffering because of the restrictions, even though the restrictions allow 20 days of irrigation for newly sod lawns and recent landscape work.

Two weeks ago, the council relaxed restrictions on car washes and auto dealers — a move Councilor Roderick Royal said was a mistake.

“We are either in a drought or we’re not,” he said. “I don’t want to push people out of business, but we have to be about the business of conserving water. Now we are almost compelled to do something, because you allowed relief for others.”

Before the restrictions, water usage from the BWWB was more than 130 million gallons per day, Underwood said. With the restrictions in place, that usage is down to about 90 million gallons of water per day, equivalent of winter usage.

Councilor Carole Smitherman asked BWWB officials to come back to the council in a week with suggestions on how to help the “green industry” and how to increase water supplies for future droughts.

BONUS RANT

What is the “green industry?”

Here at the Weekly, we already have a style prohibition against the word “community,” as in the black community, the Latino community, the gay community, etc. The reason is that adding community is usually an affectation meant to soften up an uglier stereotype. If a writer at the Weekly doesn’t feel comfortable using Latinos, blacks, gays, or the like in a sentence, then that writer has no business costuming subtle bigotry by adding community.

Likewise, we’re going to put the kibosh on so-called industries. Until recently, industry had to do with manufacturing and mass-production, not a slaphappy label of self-importance. Just because a particular business group has hired its own lobbyist, that does not an industry make. In the pages of the Weekly, the automobile industry will remain an industry, as will the steel industry and the timber industry, among others. However, the sex industry will revert to hookers, pimps and porn, and the green industry will remain gardeners, landscapers, arborists, and nursery managers.

— Kyle Whitmire