{"id":2794,"date":"2013-10-25T16:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-26T00:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/?p=2244"},"modified":"2017-02-09T14:09:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T22:09:26","slug":"pricing-bcs-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2013\/10\/25\/pricing-bcs-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post # 2 &#8211; Pricing BC\u2019s Water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many of the comments we\u2019ve been receiving so far <a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2013\/10\/18\/blog-post-1-welcome-to-the-water-sustainability-act-blog\/\">on the blog<\/a> and in email submissions have focussed on the pricing of water. Given how essential our water is, it\u2019s an important consideration for sure.\u00a0 For the most part, water fees and rentals don\u2019t currently cover the cost of administering and managing BC\u2019s water resources.<\/p>\n<p>Under the proposed <i>Water Sustainability Act<\/i>, all non-domestic users of groundwater, would be required to pay an application fee and an annual rental, in the same way that surface water users do today.<\/p>\n<p>In the new Act we\u2019re proposing that surface water and groundwater would share the same pricing structure and rates.\u00a0 We\u2019re basing this on the principle that surface and groundwater are interconnected and part of same hydrologic cycle.\u00a0 Surface and groundwater really are \u201cone water\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Government is also contemplating changes to both the pricing structure and rates for water.\u00a0 Currently, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.env.gov.bc.ca\/wsd\/water_rights\/cabinet\/schedule_1_fees_water_june-2013.pdf\">fees<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.env.gov.bc.ca\/wsd\/water_rights\/water_rental_rates\/cabinet\/new_rent_structure%20_revised_feb-2013.pdf\">rental rates<\/a> for users depend on the purpose of the water use and the amount of water used.\u00a0 In making changes, considerations include fairness and equity, impacts on users, cost recovery and ease of administration.\u00a0 We describe this more fully on pages 76 and 77 in the <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/app\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2013\/10\/WSA_legislative-proposal_web-doc.pdf\">detailed Legislative Proposal<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So in summary, the proposed new Act would allow government to regulate groundwater and assess fees and rentals like we do now for surface water.\u00a0 Specific changes to the fee and rental structure and rates require more discussion.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think government should charge for water?\u00a0 Should the rates be different for different uses or the same regardless of the purpose? Share your thoughts below by leaving a comment on the blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many of the comments we\u2019ve been receiving so far on the blog and in email submissions have focussed on the pricing of water. Given how essential our water is, it\u2019s an important consideration for sure.\u00a0 For the most part, water fees and rentals don\u2019t currently cover the cost of administering and managing BC\u2019s water resources. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2013\/10\/25\/pricing-bcs-water\/\">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":[17,10,13,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-ground-water","category-water-act-modernization","category-water-laws"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794","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=2794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3696,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions\/3696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}