{"id":3520,"date":"2016-12-14T11:28:04","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T19:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/?p=3520"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:29:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T20:29:00","slug":"blog-post-21-update-on-regulation-work-under-the-wsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2016\/12\/14\/blog-post-21-update-on-regulation-work-under-the-wsa\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog Post #21 &#8211; Update on Regulation Work under the WSA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bclaws.ca\/civix\/document\/id\/complete\/statreg\/14015\"><em>Water Sustainability Act<\/em><\/a> came into effect on February 29, 2016, the Ministries of Environment and Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations have been developing proposals to fine-tune existing regulations and develop a new regulation on livestock watering. Current work includes the development of policies and regulations associated with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Amending the definition of a \u201cwell\u201d in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bclaws.ca\/civix\/document\/id\/complete\/statreg\/39_2016\">Groundwater Protection Regulation<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Clarifying water use for mineral exploration and placer mining activities (see <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2016\/04\/21\/blog-post-20-amendments-to-the-water-sustainability-regulation\/\">Blog Post #20<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Managing drainage of non-contact water at mine sites<\/li>\n<li>Enabling access to water for community firefighting and related training<\/li>\n<li>Protecting stream values while supplying water to livestock<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Another focus includes bringing in the 20,000 existing non-domestic groundwater users. Since the Act came into effect, we have reached out to existing users through a number of channels, including distributing over 65,000 information brochures.\u00a0 We have advised local and First Nation governments, improvement districts and sector organizations through emails, meetings, presentations and conference calls. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frontcounterbc.gov.bc.ca\/Start\/ground-water\/\">FrontCounterBC<\/a> has developed detailed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frontcounterbc.gov.bc.ca\/pdf\/ExistingUse_Guide.pdf\">step-by-step guidance<\/a> on how to complete an application to license groundwater use, and workshops are also being planned to assist agricultural and other producers with the application process.<\/p>\n<p>The Province has also extended the application fee waiver period from March 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017 to encourage more groundwater users to submit their applications early.<\/p>\n<p>Licensing gives groundwater users greater security and protection.\u00a0 It also helps provide government and users with a more complete picture of groundwater use and the ability to better manage the resource.\u00a0 Visit FrontCounter BC at: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frontcounterbc.ca\">www.frontcounterbc.ca<\/a> for more information, or contact FrontCounter BC staff at 1-877-855-3222 for assistance.<\/p>\n<p>The Province is also extending the temporary exemption to the end of 2017 for water use for mineral exploration and placer mining activities (see <a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2016\/04\/21\/blog-post-20-amendments-to-the-water-sustainability-regulation\/\">Blog Post #20<\/a>). Policy work on this exemption has taken longer than anticipated and a permanent amendment is being proposed for decision in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Check back regularly for progress on this work and initiation of the <a href=\"http:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2016-ongoing\/\">next phase of regulations and policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the Water Sustainability Act came into effect on February 29, 2016, the Ministries of Environment and Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations have been developing proposals to fine-tune existing regulations and develop a new regulation on livestock watering. Current work includes the development of policies and regulations associated with: Amending the definition of a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/2016\/12\/14\/blog-post-21-update-on-regulation-work-under-the-wsa\/\">Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3520","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\/3520","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=3520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3521,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3520\/revisions\/3521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engage.gov.bc.ca\/watersustainabilityact\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}