News-Record.com

I popped into a meeting of the North Carolina Economic Development Board this morning, attracted by an agenda item on the drought.

The state is in the process of trying to determine the price tag for the drought in North Carolina, said Stephanie McGarrah, assistant secretary of commerce.

"No other state has been able to do that," she said.

That said, there is some economic cost already to the drought, and it is more than just what governments are spending interconnecting water systems or making contingency plans she said.

Farmers, Christmas tree growers, those who make their livelihoods in the landscaping business are already suffering. Basically, all the businesses that rely on stuff growing are in trouble.

"We haven't seen any problems in terms of it affecting recruitment or retention yet," McGarrah said.

Yet.

But think about it. If you're looking at moving your company somewhere, are you going to move to place that potentially could run out of water? What if your company uses water in some of its manufacturing processes? It wouldn't matter what kind of tax breaks the state offered if you couldn't carry out your business or convince your core workforce to move here.

This was actually one (and possibly the only) upside to textile manufacturers leaving Greensboro in droves. The city's water use fell by hundreds of thousands of gallons in the later 1990s and early 2000s because companies weren't drawing on the municipal system as much.

Lots of industries could be affected, McGarrah said. From the motel/hotel folks to anyone in the food processing business to power companies to microchip manufacturers could be affected in some way. All of those industries rely on water in some way. Even those that don't use large amounts but need it to be a certain quality could be affected as municipal water systems draw from lower down in reservoirs than usual.

All of a sudden, I don't feel as bad about my lawn looking scruffy.