Sunday Atlanta begins its June, July, August march through the third drought summer in a row with little rain, scorched lawns and frayed nerves in the forecast.

But, in at least one neighborhood, there's still the green peace that comes with the gentle "tsk, tsk" of lawn sprinklers; and the comfort of not having to fear wilted shrubbery, dead sod — and the water cops.

LOUIE FAVORITE/AJC (ENLARGE)

Andy Beauchamp (left) and Danny Parnell of Morgan Well Drilling prepare Thursday to drill for water at a residence in Buckhead.

LOUIE FAVORITE/AJC (ENLARGE)

Dave Ward drills a well in affluent Buckhead, where some can afford to reach water not covered by state rules.

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In Buckhead scores of sprawling green lawns will stay lush and swimming pools brimming because the city's richest precinct has gone well-drilling crazy since the state-imposed outdoor watering ban last October. Until two weeks ago, the ban was strictly enforced in the City of Atlanta.

In a neighborhood where many of Atlanta's richest and powerful live — where homes cost millions and landscaping can cost hundreds of thousands — spending a little more green to keep it green is worth it.

"Paying ten to fifteen thousand dollars for a well is a pittance when you consider how much you've paid for your house and the landscape," said Rudy Harrell, a real estate agent who has sold homes in Buckhead for decades and is having his own well installed in Buckhead.

A well is a simple solution to a daunting drought that has brought calls for conservation and launched efforts to find new sources of water, including moving the state line to tap into the Tennessee River.

In Fulton County it takes only a day or two to get a well permit, another day or two for a crew to drill it — as deep as 600 feet, mostly through the solid granite under all of metro Atlanta — and another day or two to install the pump and hook up the electricity and water lines.

It's not cheap. The going rate for drilling a well ranges widely, depending on how deep the well has to go. The average cost per foot of drilling is about $14. Some hit water at 100 feet, some at 600. And it's a gamble because the drillers guarantee nothing, and some wells come up dry.

If the driller hits water — and most do — the amount of flow can range wildly, from 5 gallons a minute to about 200. With the costs of cleanup, landscape repair, buying and installing and connecting a pumping system to electricity and pipes, the total can hit $15,000.

Free ground water

Over the long term, said Harrell, the rich get off cheap. Ground water is free, and virtually limitless. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division only regulates wells that pull 100,000 gallons or more water a day. A swimming pool can be filled with 20,000 gallons.

The City of Atlanta also plans to raise water prices. And last fall — making lawn watering even more expensive — the city quit selling irrigation meters that offer cheaper water because, unlike tap water, irrigation meter water doesn't carry sewer service charges.

As a result, many custom homes being built in Buckhead now come with wells. "When you calculate the amount of money on water you'll save over years and years, ten or fifteen thousand dollars doesn't sound that bad," said Harrell.

In a neighborhood forever cognizant of image, the wells have given rise to a new emblem of affluence: Faux rocks — most big and gray and plastic — that cover well heads and cost about $400.

The fake rocks protrude (sometimes disguised by a ring of fresh shrubbery) on the front lawns of some of the city's most prestigious homes on the most prestigious thoroughfares: West Paces Ferry Road, Tuxedo Road, Valley Road, Habersham Road.

Sometimes there's also a sign, to silence neighbors who might snitch, and ward off the water police: "Irrigated By Well Water."

'A little bit busy'

Relatively speaking, the rush to drill wells in Fulton County has been astounding. The year before the state issued an outdoor watering ban, Fulton County issued 10 well-drilling permits.

Since the ban, the county has issued more than 260 well permits. About half of those are in Buckhead. Another 15 percent are in Alpharetta. The rest are spread around the county.

"It's been a little bit busy," said John Gormley, director of Fulton County Environmental Health Services, which issues the permits and tests the well water for purity. Even wells intended only for lawn-watering must be drinkable, or the permit can be revoked.

The well-drilling business has boomed elsewhere. Cobb County has issued 67 "Intent To Drill A Well Forms" since January, a rate more than double the pace of 2007 when, for the entire year, Cobb issued 54 well forms.

In DeKalb and Gwinnett and farther outlying counties — where wells can be drilled without a permit — drillers report sharp increases in business, though exact numbers aren't available.

By all accounts — anecdotal and otherwise — the well boom is centered in Buckhead, home of the state's chief water regulator, Gov. Sonny Perdue. After issuing the total outdoor watering ban for north Georgia counties last fall, Perdue relaxed it last February, allowing pools to be refilled and limited outdoor watering.

The City of Atlanta kept its strict ban until Perdue signed a new state law two weeks ago forcing Atlanta to comply with the relaxed state regulations. But none of that has slowed the well-drilling frenzy in Buckhead, said well-drillers, who report being six months behind demand.

Drilling picks up

Last week, on Habersham Road, crews from two companies, Morgan Well Drilling from Griffin and Ward Water Systems from Acworth worked across the street from each other on a stretch of multi-million-dollar homes.

"I'm drilling about three wells a week," said Scott Knight of Morgan Well Drilling, who joked that he's working as fast as he can "just trying to keep the rich and famous happy." It's not an easy chore among a clientele with lots of money and even more expectations.

Knight recalled that his most famous customer, Atlanta filmmaker Tyler Perry ("Diary of a Mad Black Woman") hired him to drill a well on his 17-acre estate with a $22 million home off Paces Ferry Road.

"He had two wells drilled, and they came up dry, even though the house is on the Chattahoochee River," said Knight. "So I drilled a third one. But he insisted it be on the top of the hill, and it came up dry, too."

Though the well-drilling is in plain sight for anybody who can recognize a huge derrick in a front yard of a Buckhead home and the sound of a roaring diesel engine, neighbors don't like to talk about the wells. At least not on the record to a reporter.

"I'll tell you all you want to know about it, but I just don't want my name in the paper," said a financial adviser whose three-acre fescue lawn on Cherokee Road almost died last summer, prompting him to have a well drilled this spring.

The adviser, and a handful of others in Buckhead who have wells and were asked for interviews by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said they didn't believe they were violating the spirit of the city's efforts to conserve water in the historic drought.

Is it a risk?

Geologists generally agree that, so far, all the wells don't present a danger to the city's ground water. "There's no evidence that it's taking from surface water" that provides drinking water to the region, said Georgia EPD geologist Jim Kennedy.

To the contrary, the EPD has had conversations with Perdue about tapping the groundwater as a fresh source for the city and north Georgia. "He [Perdue] is interested in diversifying our water resources within the state," said Kennedy.

Unlike wells dug in shallow surface soil that can sometimes indirectly tap into surface streams, wells drilled in metro Atlanta take their water from fissures in granite, 100 feet or more below the surface.

Those fissures do not tap into or feed surface water, said John Clarke, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, which monitors ground water levels around the state.

Makes no matter, said Janet Ward, spokeswoman for the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, which fought — and lost — the battle with the state to keep its strict outdoor watering ban in place.

"Wells deplete ground water and are not an environmentally sound answer to the drought," said Ward. "We believe water conservation is an environmentally sound answer to the drought."

Geologists Kennedy and Clarke say they're not certain what might happen long term if too many wells are drilled and too much water is withdrawn. The state, for instance, is still deciding whether to give a well permit to Piedmont Park to water the parched park.

Some things about ground water remain unpredictable. Knight's crew on Habersham hit water at about 100 feet. Across the street — about 100 yards away — another crew drilled about 400 feet before it hit water.

But the customer with the deeper well was happy, said Dave Ward, preparing to put the fake rock in place to disguise the well head a few feet from the street, across from a $4.2 million home.

"We've got a 15-gallon-a-minute flow," he said. "And with a 15-gallon-a-minute flow you can fill a swimming pool every day of your life for the rest of your life and never run out of water."

— New researcher Sharon Gaus contributed to this article.