The Department of Environmental Quality regulates ground water withdrawals of 1,000 gallons a day or more in designated ground water management areas. Virginia has used a ground water flow model developed over thirty years ago to evaluate the impact of groundwater withdrawals on the aquifers in its attempts to manage groundwater withdrawals. Virginia has recently admitted that this model over predicts impacts in some locations and under predicts impacts in others. Over the past thirty years scientific understanding of hydraulics and the coastal aquifer system in particular has expanded exponentially, including the discovery of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater, the presence of land subsidence, and discover of inter aquifer impact. The groundwater model reflects none of these features.
Virginia DEQ has initiated an effort to merge the various sources of historical and new well information into one statewide database that can be used for regional analysis of groundwater aquifer systems. Though I tend to distrust all long term modeling efforts for their simplifications and straight line projections; however, water planning ten and twenty years out is a standard practice in the US west and other water critical areas of the world and should continue in Virginia. Water supply projections a decade or two out is a much simpler model than say climate projections, but still are impacted by non-correlated variables and limited knowledge of groundwater recharge and reserves that would make it difficult to accurately projects water demand and availability. Nonetheless to avoid the over use of a critical resource we need to manage it.
In 1992 the State Water Control Board established two groundwater management areas, one on the Eastern Shore and another covering the James-York Peninsula and Southside Virginia. It has been observed from monitoring data that artesian groundwater levels of the Northern Neck have been declining at a rate of 1.2 to 3.0 feet per year. It is likely that groundwater levels will continue to fall and several citizen’s groups have pressured the State Water Control Board to extend the Eastern Virginia Ground Water Management Area to the portion of the Coastal Plain aquifer system that underlies the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. Groundwater and surface water supply are not fully understood, but are limited by nature. Groundwater can only be withdrawn indefinitely at sustainable levels without irreparably damaging our water supply. The question is not should we manage our groundwater use, but how. A Regulatory Advisory Panel (RAP) was created to discuss the Notices of Intended Regulatory Action (NOIRA) to expand the Eastern Virginia Ground Water Management Area. The last meeting of the RAP will be on April 1, 2010. I look forward to reading their report.
Virginia’s water supply must be sustainable. Excessive groundwater pumping can result in reduced river flows, lower lake levels, reduced discharge to wetlands and springs and saltwater infiltration and subsidence. Overuse of groundwater can impact drinking water supplies, riparian areas and critical aquatic habitats. (See California for how to mismanage water resources.) Groundwater sustainability is achieved when recharge rate equals the pumping rate. The recharge rate is impacted by precipitation and ground surface coverage. Though we can have some impact on the recharge rate by protecting areas like the Fall Line and decisions about waste disposal we cannot directly control precipitation which is the major source of recharge in Virginia.
Our laws and regulations do not reflect a coherent concept of what water is about. Though laws create some tools for managing water on the state and county level the tools are being used in various ways and the result is a disorganized approach to each element of zoning and permitting that do not reflect a coherent concept of water management. We need a clearer concept of what we need to do to have sustainable water and then develop the legislative framework for a water budget that will allow for periodic droughts. There are many ways to approach this problem. A top down permit system is one method. Like most Virginians I abhor central control. Live Free or Die. However, there are other methods to achieve water sustainability. A market based system with tradable permits would allow optimal economic development, but may have undesirable social consequences. A combination of approaches needs to be worked out. The first step is to determine who owns the water rights in Virginia. Do water rights belong to the land?
Showing posts with label Groundwater Management Act of 1992. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Groundwater Management Act of 1992. Show all posts
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Groundwater Management in Virginia
The Virginia Ground Water Management Act of 1992 mandates the regulation of large groundwater withdrawals in certain portions of the Commonwealth to prevent adverse impacts due to over utilization of the resource. There are currently two proposed changes to the regulations. It has been proposed to expand the Eastern Virginia Ground Water Management Area to include the Counties of Caroline, King and Queen, Gloucester, Mathews, Middlesex, Essex, King George, Westmoreland, Richmond, Lancaster and Northumberland; parts of Spotsylvania, Stafford, Prince William, Fairfax and Arlington Counties; and the City of Alexandria. This would expand groundwater withdrawals beyond the confines of the Tidewater, west of the fall zone, into another groundwater basin. Currently, this Ground Water Management Area includes every county and city south of the York River and its tributaries and east of I 95, except Gloucester, Mathews, Middlesex Counties. The proposed expansion would bring these three counties on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay, and the corresponding area north of the York and its tributaries, into the regulated area. The boundaries of the Eastern Shore Ground Water Management Area would remain unchanged.
Ground water levels in the Tidewater region of Virginia’s coastal plain are continuing to decline. Impacts from groundwater withdrawals are propagating along the fall zone into the coastal plain and have the potential to interfere with wells in these areas. However, you cannot manage the several groundwater basins as if they were a single basin, but you cannot ignore the interrelation between the basins. The smallest of examples in this area is Bull Run which feeds the Occoquan Reservoir originates in the Piedmont. The coastal plain has been the area of the most intense growth and the area was forecast by Virginia Tech to have inadequate reserves to meet the next drought if not addressed. Given current ground water declines, the entire coastal plain aquifer system must be managed to maintain a sustainable future supply of ground water. Virginia is blessed with what appears to be rich resources of water, but they are not infinite. Surprisingly little hard data on the groundwater has been collected. As a much wiser man than I pointed out, without data there can be no understanding of our resources and our planet. What level of withdrawal does the Agency propose to allow in each basin?
The second proposed change is a little frightening because it both ambiguous and seemingly ambitious in its reach: the Board and DEQ propose “to consider amending the Ground Water Withdrawal Regulation, 9 VAC 25 610 to address the increasing demand on limited groundwater resources, changes to the administrative review process, and regulatory changes necessitated by new information on the coastal plain aquifer system.” Virginia is estimated to use 188 million gallons of groundwater each day to supply public water systems, industry, agriculture, commercial operations and mining. This excludes over 40 million gallons a day that supplies private domestic well in the state including my well. While applaud the agency’s proactive stance, to take action to manage and maintain our water resources before crisis strikes, I wonder how can the DEQ even propose regulations on diverse geology, demand and groundwater basins and do so without data. Though the goal is laudable, what methods are they proposing to manage, control, protect and allocate a resource that is not well understood? The agencies’ reasons for proposing this action echo and elaborate on their explanation of reasons for proposing to expand the Ground Water Management Area, but that is not enough.
Even more ominous, the Board is preparing “to address for which users and for what purposes this finite resource should be allocated” and “to address what constitutes an adequate margin of safety and what technical criteria are defensible for determining whether or not to issue a permit and for what amounts.” All of this appears to signal a readiness and desire to control the most valuable resource in the commonwealth of Virginia. Without water there can be no life, no economy. More importantly, the Agency seems to have determined that allocation of water resources will be performed by government with a strategy or manner of its choosing. The agency proposes to allocate the most valuable resource in the commonwealth of Virginia without answering the question of How should water be allocated. The Agency is determined to proceed to avoid ground water declines. Before the Agency proceeds to manage the groundwater use for Virginia, the people must determine how this resource should be managed.
Ground water levels in the Tidewater region of Virginia’s coastal plain are continuing to decline. Impacts from groundwater withdrawals are propagating along the fall zone into the coastal plain and have the potential to interfere with wells in these areas. However, you cannot manage the several groundwater basins as if they were a single basin, but you cannot ignore the interrelation between the basins. The smallest of examples in this area is Bull Run which feeds the Occoquan Reservoir originates in the Piedmont. The coastal plain has been the area of the most intense growth and the area was forecast by Virginia Tech to have inadequate reserves to meet the next drought if not addressed. Given current ground water declines, the entire coastal plain aquifer system must be managed to maintain a sustainable future supply of ground water. Virginia is blessed with what appears to be rich resources of water, but they are not infinite. Surprisingly little hard data on the groundwater has been collected. As a much wiser man than I pointed out, without data there can be no understanding of our resources and our planet. What level of withdrawal does the Agency propose to allow in each basin?
The second proposed change is a little frightening because it both ambiguous and seemingly ambitious in its reach: the Board and DEQ propose “to consider amending the Ground Water Withdrawal Regulation, 9 VAC 25 610 to address the increasing demand on limited groundwater resources, changes to the administrative review process, and regulatory changes necessitated by new information on the coastal plain aquifer system.” Virginia is estimated to use 188 million gallons of groundwater each day to supply public water systems, industry, agriculture, commercial operations and mining. This excludes over 40 million gallons a day that supplies private domestic well in the state including my well. While applaud the agency’s proactive stance, to take action to manage and maintain our water resources before crisis strikes, I wonder how can the DEQ even propose regulations on diverse geology, demand and groundwater basins and do so without data. Though the goal is laudable, what methods are they proposing to manage, control, protect and allocate a resource that is not well understood? The agencies’ reasons for proposing this action echo and elaborate on their explanation of reasons for proposing to expand the Ground Water Management Area, but that is not enough.
Even more ominous, the Board is preparing “to address for which users and for what purposes this finite resource should be allocated” and “to address what constitutes an adequate margin of safety and what technical criteria are defensible for determining whether or not to issue a permit and for what amounts.” All of this appears to signal a readiness and desire to control the most valuable resource in the commonwealth of Virginia. Without water there can be no life, no economy. More importantly, the Agency seems to have determined that allocation of water resources will be performed by government with a strategy or manner of its choosing. The agency proposes to allocate the most valuable resource in the commonwealth of Virginia without answering the question of How should water be allocated. The Agency is determined to proceed to avoid ground water declines. Before the Agency proceeds to manage the groundwater use for Virginia, the people must determine how this resource should be managed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)