The drought's mean persistence has claimed another Athens, Ga. business casualty. This time, major retailer Pike Nursery Holding has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Thankfully, Norcross-based Pike did not announce it was closing like Athens' own Charmar Flowers & Gifts did last month, but Pike's future will depend on when and how much rain Georgia and the Southeast get in the coming months.
Pike operates 22 locations in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina, and if the company is unable to weather the drought, it would have a huge economic impact on our region. The company has obtained $11.54 million in financing to keep it operating during its bankruptcy period, and business will continue as normal, an Associated Press report said.
The Georgia Urban Agriculture Council - which represents retail garden centers; floriculturists; turf grass and sod growers; the nursery and horticulture industry; landscape architects; landscape installation and maintenance; green wholesalers; golf courses and their related businesses; and florists -reports about 14,000 Georgians have lost jobs because of the drought. Further water restrictions virtually guarantee more job losses.
The council claims the 7,000 businesses it represents generate more than $8 billion in sales, and employ more than 80,000 people. Ornamental horticulture held a value of more than $765 million statewide, according to the 2006 Georgia Farm Gate Value Report compiled by the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Science. Clarke County was ranked fourth and Oconee County fifth in the Farm Gate Value Report with $23.6 million and about $22 million, respectively.
The freeze earlier this year and our extended drought certainly will present a dramatic change for 2007's farm gate values. As the lack of rain presses on, we can expect to lose more and more businesses.
Georgia green industry businesses are calling for relief from local and state governments, and they make some good points. Flowers, plants and - most importantly - trees offer many benefits to our communities. Besides the aesthetics, they provide more practical uses such as erosion control and filtration for air and water.
Still, when the issue is couched in terms of watering plants versus maintaining a supply of drinking and flushing water, the choice is easy for government officials.
Commercial horticultural interests complain they have been unfairly sacrificed to the rain gods as an easy solution for reducing water consumption, primarily because outdoor watering is the most visible. They argue that landscape watering represents only 20 percent to 25 percent of residential water use and therefore should not be banned completely, but regulated more carefully.
They also argue that other businesses, many that use much more water, should share some of the water restriction burden that the horticulture sector now is bearing.
Curtailing water use in other industries might free up some water for landscaping and help keep the horticulture businesses from closing up.
Come next spring, if the drought and landscaping water restrictions don't let up, we can expect to read about many more horticulture-related businesses not just declaring bankruptcy but shutting down.
The withering financial climate caused by the drought will continue to worsen, Mary Kay Woodworth, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Landscape and Turf Association, said in the AP story.
"This is just the beginning of the economic fallout," she said. "It's going to continue week by week, month by month. And I don't think we'll recover from this until at least the third quarter of 2008 - even with rain."
That's unsettling enough to make you wonder if there are any ways the government can help the green industry survive this crisis. Gray water might be a start.