LEGAL 



TIDES 



Water, Water Everywhere 



rater, water everywhere, but 

 not a drop to drink. Or, so the saying goes. 



To make certain that won't be the case 

 in North Carolina, legislators, experts from 

 the N.C. Department of Environment and 

 Natural Resources, along with municipal 

 water system operators and university 

 scientists have spent more than a decade 

 studying future water supply demands 

 across the state. 



In 1989 the General Assembly 

 mandated a state and local water planning 

 process to address major supply issues — 

 and solutions. 



The effort coalesced in January 2000 

 in the first draft of The State Water Supply 

 Plan — the first document of its kind in 

 North Carolina. The nonregulatory plan, 

 based on local water supply assessments, is 

 expected to be finalized in December. 



Walter Clark, Sea Grant legal and 

 policy specialist, says, "Long-range 

 planning is critical in today's world of 

 expanding growth. If we hope to protect 



By Pant Smith 



our natural resources, including water and 

 open space, we must be proactive now. It will 

 be difficult — if not impossible — to recover 

 these vital resources once they are gone." 



Nowhere in the state is water supply 

 more critical than in the central coastal 

 plain, where studies by the N.C. Division of 

 Water Resources (DWR) indicate alarming 

 declines in groundwater sources, especially 

 the Upper Cape Fear and Black Creek 

 aquifers. As a remedy, the agency recom- 

 mends establishing a Central Coastal Plain 

 Capacity Use Area for the 15-county region, 

 which includes fast-growing Pitt, Lenoir, 

 Craven and Onslow counties. 



Capacity-use rules require those who 

 take more than 100,000 gallons a day to 

 apply for a special use permit and report 

 water use rates to the state. 



Municipal water systems in the region 

 use dozens of deep wells to tap into the 

 aquifers — layers of sand saturated with 

 water and sealed in layers of clay. Dewater- 

 ing of aquifers can permanently reduce an 



aquifer's water storage capacity; result in the 

 encroachment of salt water into fresh water 

 portions of the aquifers; and contribute to 

 sinkholes and depressed land areas. 



To protect these aquifers and the 

 dependability of supply, water withdrawals 

 from the Upper Cape Fear and Black Creek 

 aquifers have to be reduced. Under the 

 proposed Central Coastal Plain Capacity Use 

 Area Rules, some cities and other water 

 users would be required to reduce withdraw- 

 als from these aquifers up to 75 percent over 

 the next 16 years. 



But before implementation, the 

 proposed capacity-use rules first will be 

 subject to rigorous review, beginning with 

 the Environmental Management Commis- 

 sion in December. The rules also will be 

 studied by a state legislative subcommittee 

 for placement on the 2002 General Assem- 

 bly agenda. If approved, the central coastal 

 plain rules could be implemented by 

 summer of 2002. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 21 



