In North Carolina, there is no gray area of the law when it comes to dumping used bath water onto parched gardens or withering lawns.

It is illegal.

Triangle residents might think they are creating an oasis in this protracted drought when they use buckets, pipes or pumps to reroute water headed for the drain to the dry outdoors.

They're also flouting the law. Even something as simple as dumping used dishwater onto a shriveled flower bed is prohibited.

"I am surprised and mortified," said Jane Currin of Youngsville. "I didn't realize the law reached into my kitchen sink."

Currin spent $1 on a plastic tub that would fit perfectly into her kitchen sink. She and her husband Wyatt thought they were being good stewards of the environment, conserving water and electricity, by skimming food scraps and particles from their dishwater tub and dumping the water on shrubs and plants in their yard.

Not so, says Barbara Hartley Grimes, a program coordinator at the state Division of Environmental Health. Untreated "gray water" -- defined by the state plumbing code as water discharged from bathtubs, household sinks, showers and washing machines -- is wastewater, no more safe to use than the water people flush down their toilets.

Potential danger

As the Triangle tightens taps during the most severe drought in memory, residents have been coming up with their own ways to save water. Many are trying to meet the governor's suggested goal of cutting consumption by 50 percent.

But state officials caution against using gray water, which accounts for 50 to 80 percent of household wastewater, because it can contain bacteria, fungi, chemicals and other contaminants that can make people sick.

"What you're talking about is throwing out slop water," Grimes said. "I don't want people thinking they can get away with it if nobody sees it. It is a public health hazard."

It is up to county health departments to enforce the rules. Typically, Grimes said, health officials work with offenders to bring them into compliance rather than punish them.

To explain why gray water laws exist, Grimes refers to ancient times when waste was tossed out castle windows into murky moats below. She mentions the infectious diseases and epidemics carried by the open city canals filled with raw sewage.

Few would argue that North Carolina should go back to the days before the privy law, circa 1919, required homes within 300 feet of another to have their toilets approved by the state board of health.

But Stacy Murphy, a Durham resident, thinks the state's gray water rules could benefit from a tweak. Until recently, she and her husband used tub water from their children's baths to water their trees. Then they found out it was against the rules.

"I understand the overall big picture," Murphy said. "Basically you don't want to be pooping upstream and washing your dishes downstream."

'A little bit crazy'

Murphy does not grasp the reasoning against saving used bath water for 24 hours to fill her toilet tanks for flushing.

State law allows gray water to be used to flush toilet tanks as long as it has been filtered and disinfected.

"That's the part of the law that's a little bit crazy," Murphy said. "I don't think I'm exposing any families to cholera or infectious diseases by saving the bath water 24 hours and then flushing it. It's probably time to get together with health departments and legislators and try to work out more reasonable approaches."

There is nothing wrong, state environment and health officials say, with collecting water in the shower while waiting for the cool to get warm -- as long as it hasn't touched you. It is permissible, too, to collect and use water from the kitchen sink as long as it has not come into contact with food and other waste.

New neighborhoods

Some communities in North Carolina are beginning to use gray water for irrigation, but only after it's been treated.

In Cary and Chapel Hill, town officials have begun to push developers to build neighborhoods where gray water can be reclaimed, treated and used for outdoor watering.

But piping used water from the shower directly to your outdoor plants is against the rules, no matter how clean you think you are.

"Just think of the reason you're washing your body," Grimes said. "You're washing off waste. You're washing off pathogens."