{"id":3167,"date":"2015-07-30T08:33:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T16:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/?p=2930"},"modified":"2017-02-09T14:09:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T22:09:26","slug":"blog-post-16-proposed-water-policies-what-do-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2015\/07\/30\/blog-post-16-proposed-water-policies-what-do-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post #16 \u2013 Proposed water policies: what do you think?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Much of the detail related to implementation of the new <em>Water Sustainability Act<\/em> will be provided in regulations and operational policies.\u00a0 Due to the complexity of the new act and the number of proposed regulations, government is taking a phased approach to implementation.<\/p>\n<p>Government has released four papers describing proposed new policies related to core water management activities.\u00a0 The papers discuss:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/app\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2016\/02\/LicensingGroundwaterUse-Web-Copy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Licensing<\/em> <em>groundwater use<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and assigning related water rights.\u00a0Proposed policies\u00a0encourage existing groundwater users to apply early for a licence.<\/li>\n<li>Requirements for constructing and maintaining wells and <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.env.gov.bc.ca\/wsd\/plan_protect_sustain\/groundwater\/gw_regulation\/GWPR_private_well_owners.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">protecting groundwater<\/a><\/em>, including the management of artesian flows and the deactivation and decommissioning of unused wells.<\/li>\n<li>Provisions to enhance <em><a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/app\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2016\/02\/DamSafetyRegulation-Web-Copy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">dam safety<\/a><\/em>; and reduce risk related to a dam failure, including more stringent requirements for emergency planning and annual review of downstream conditions.<\/li>\n<li>New <em><a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/app\/uploads\/sites\/71\/2016\/02\/StrengtheningCompliance-Web-Copy-1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">offences<\/a><\/em> and fines<em>, <\/em>including offences related to the beneficial use of water, groundwater licensing, and enhanced protection of aquatic ecosystems..<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pending government review and approval, the proposed policies are to be\u00a0incorporated into new regulations that would come into force along with the <em>Water Sustainability Act<\/em> in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>We invite you to share your thoughts about the proposed policies by leaving a comment below or sending an email to <a href=\"mailto:livingwatersmart@gov.bc.ca\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc\">livingwatersmart@gov.bc.ca<\/span><\/u><\/a><u>.<\/u>\u00a0Comments will be\u00a0accepted until\u00a0September 8th, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>The Living Water Smart Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Much of the detail related to implementation of the new Water Sustainability Act will be provided in regulations and operational policies.\u00a0 Due to the complexity of the new act and the number of proposed regulations, government is taking a phased approach to implementation. Government has released four papers describing proposed new policies related to core &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2015\/07\/30\/blog-post-16-proposed-water-policies-what-do-you-think\/\">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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167","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=3167"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3460,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3167\/revisions\/3460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}