Water seen here is often times overlooked as your typical drinking water. While levels are back to normal now, there was a time only a few years ago when rivers like this were barely flowing due to a drought. Athens Clark County has utilized strong conservation efforts alongside UGA to make sure it’s water footprint continues to improve. Water conservation in Athens has become a normal trend. The conservation office has dedicated programs to help make water conservation easier and has the numbers to show that it has worked. UGA is Clarke County’s biggest water user and is trying to reduce it’s use by 40% by 2020.

Before conservation efforts during the severe Georgia droughts, Clarke county was using more than 20 million gallons of water During the summer. That number has been cut down to around 14 million gallons at peaks