News-Record.com

The professionally lettered sign is back.

After a couple years' hiatus, it sits attached to a wooden stake on a lush corner lot where the grass really is greener on the other side. Thicker, too.

"Well water," it says, so presumably the city's water police and huffy neighbors won't get bent out of shape. It's not city of Greensboro water, so it's OK even under the mandatory water restrictions that limit sprinklers to one day a week.

Problem is, even if watering lawns with well water is legal, it's still not wise as a drought grips the whole state and seems hell-bent not to let go.

Wells may not deplete the city's reservoirs, but they do deplete precious ground water all the same.

The News & Observer of Raleigh recently reported that Triangle wells are starting to run dry. But an N&O story last week focused on people who rely on wells because that's all they have.

In other words, those wells aren't for lawns or flower beds, they're for more basic, mundane stuff, like drinking, cooking and showers.

Approximately 2 million North Carolinians rely on private wells for all of their water.

As for the rest, whose wells merely make their lawns the envy of the neighborhood, well, even the "well water" sign shouldn't be a license to over-indulge.