Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Sustainable Water For Virginia

Awaiting the Governor's signature is SB 211 a bill that the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District wrote and championed to include it in the legislative agenda of the Virginia Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.This bill was endorsed by the Virginia Association of Conservation Districts Board of Directors on September 20, 2017 and ratified by the membership at their annual meeting in December 2017. Prince William's own State Senator Richard Stuart to sponsored and championed through the bill through the legislature. It passed both houses with over 93% of the vote. We did it!

This bill is an amendment to the Comprehensive plan legislation. This bill requires the counties to consider both surface water and groundwater availability, quality and sustainability, in the preparation of their comprehensive plan, and provide adequate, good quality and sustainable water to all residents. It is a necessary next step to ensure the availability of sustainable, good quality water to all Virginians.

Comprehensive planning is already required and is not new. Groundwater and surface water are protected under the current legislation. This bill makes one important change to current law: in preparation of a comprehensive plan, the local planning commission shall consider not only groundwater and surface water; but groundwater and surface water availability, quality and sustainability.

Virginia is dependent on groundwater. According to Virginia Tech there are approximately 1.7 million Virginians who get their water from a private well. In addition, according to the U.S. Geological Survey there are almost 750,000 Virginians who get their water from public and private community supply groundwater wells. In total that means that approximately 30% of Virginians are entirely dependent on groundwater for their drinking water.

Our other communities are dependent on surface water or a mix of groundwater and surface water. Surface and groundwater resources are limited. Having a comprehensive plan that lets people run out of water or has inadequate water to meet current or future zoning and planned development is not much of a plan.

Water resources can only be managed on a local level. There are already problems with availability, quality and sustainability of groundwater in Virginia in places such as Fauquier County, Loudoun County and the Coastal Plain. In addition, there is new information that was not previously available. Using their satellites, NASA can now measure groundwater depletion from space. They found that over the ten years (2003-2013) all of Virginia’s groundwater aquifers were being depleted, using groundwater faster than it was being recharged.