{"id":2389,"date":"2013-11-14T23:17:40","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T07:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/?p=2389"},"modified":"2017-02-09T14:09:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T22:09:26","slug":"blog-post-6-water-and-oil-gas-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2013\/11\/14\/blog-post-6-water-and-oil-gas-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post #6 \u2013 Water and oil &amp; gas development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Water use in the oil and gas\u00a0industry is another common theme in the <a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/whatweheard\/\" target=\"_blank\">comments<\/a> we\u2019ve received to date.\u00a0 The proposed <em>Water Sustainability Act<\/em> would apply to the oil and gas industry just like any other sector.\u00a0 Currently, authorizations for surface water used by the oil and gas sector are made through an Approval for short-term water use (up to 24 months) or under a Water Licence for longer-term uses.<\/p>\n<p>Provisions in the new WSA that would affect the oil and gas sector include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Groundwater regulation \u2013 water used for oil and gas operations including hydraulic fracturing would require an authorization under the new Act, regardless of whether the water is surface or groundwater. An exemption is being considered for deep saline groundwater\u2014water that\u00a0is typically unsuitable for drinking and irrigation, but could be viable for some commercial purposes.<\/li>\n<li>Decision-makers will be required to consider environmental flows for all new Approvals and Licences.<\/li>\n<li>Water objectives and water sustainability plans proposed under the Act would apply and may establish specific requirements or objectives for an area.<\/li>\n<li>Measuring and reporting on water use will be required for all large users including the oil and gas sector.\u00a0 The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission already requires industry to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bcogc.ca\/publications\/Reports\" target=\"_blank\">regularly report water use<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/fracfocus.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\">publically disclose ingredients<\/a> used for hydraulic fracturing.<\/li>\n<li>Government would be able to regulate licence and approval holders to meet critical environmental flows during times of drought\/scarcity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Government is also assessing <a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2013\/10\/25\/pricing-bcs-water\/\" target=\"_blank\">fees and rentals<\/a> for various water uses (surface and groundwater) including the oil and gas sector.\u00a0 And in completing the new Act we are looking closely at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bcogc.ca\/Legislation\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Oil and Gas Activities Act<\/i><\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.env.gov.bc.ca\/epd\/main\/ema.htm\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Environmental Management Act<\/i><\/a> to ensure that surface and groundwater are protected during hydraulic fracturing operations.<\/p>\n<p>Send us your comments on the W<i>ater Sustainability Act <\/i>legislative proposal by leaving a comment on the <a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\" target=\"_blank\">blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Water use in the oil and gas\u00a0industry is another common theme in the comments we\u2019ve received to date.\u00a0 The proposed Water Sustainability Act would apply to the oil and gas industry just like any other sector.\u00a0 Currently, authorizations for surface water used by the oil and gas sector are made through an Approval for short-term &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2013\/11\/14\/blog-post-6-water-and-oil-gas-development\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-ground-water","category-water-act-modernization"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}