Assured supply laws
From Water Wiki
Many states have passed laws that attempt to link assured water supply to development approvals. Here is an article that discusses this and evaluates these laws in a qualitative cost-benefit analysis. In 2006, "all but 6 of the 17 states west of the Missouri River in the continental U.S. (Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, and Utah) had some form of state requirement linking subdivision approval to [a] demonstration of adequate water supplies”[1]). In June 2008, the New York Times reported that California water authorities throughout the state began denying building permits under its assured supply law passed in 2001.[2] Florida has its concurrency requirements; Vermont has an assured supply law, and some localities in Maryland and North Carolina have ordinances that require attention to water supply before subdivision or other development approvals are made.[3]
North Carolina's approach centers on the capacity development requirements of the state's Public Water Supply Section of the Division of Environmental Health within DENR. The statutes authorizing the regulation of water system capacity have led to rules that require some attention to supply adequacy before community water systems are newly built or expanded. There is no real link, however, either with local water supply planning (units that produce these plans are excluded from the supply assurance part of the capacity rules) or with river basin modeling. Reflecting the public health heritage and historical ample water supply in North Carolina, the statutes and rules for capacity of water systems are much more focused on avoiding water contamination than on assuring water quantity.
Notes
- ↑ Ellen Hanak & Margaret K. Browne, Linking Housing Growth to Water Supply: New Planning Frontiers in the American West, 72 J. AM. PLAN. ASS’N 154, 154 n.1 (2006)
- ↑ "Water-Starved California Slows Development," New York Times June 7, 2008 online edition http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/us/07drought.html
- ↑ See Mary Jane Angelo, Integrating Water Management and Land Use Planning: Uncovering the Missing Link in the Protection of Florida’s Water Resources?, 2 U. FLA. J.L. & PUB. POL’Y 223, 235–41 (2001); Kevin M. O’Brien & Barbara Markham, Tale of Two Coasts: How Two States Link Water and Land Use, 11 NAT. RESOURCES & ENV’T 3, 5–7 (1996) (discussing Florida); Adam Strachan, Note, Concurrency Laws: Water as a Land-Use Regulation, 21 J. LAND RESOURCES &; ENVTL. L. 435, 438–42 (2001) (addressing Maryland and Vermont); see also John Roszkowski, Planning for Growth with Water in Mind, ELM LEAVES (Elmwood Park, Ill.), July 26, 2006 (discussing potential policy responses for water demand from Chicago suburbs); David Snyder, A New Direction in Water Law: Frederick Ordinance Resembles Western U.S. Approach, WASH. POST, Sept. 23, 2002, at B1 (also noting that some North Carolina localities have assured supply laws).
