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Water licences and conservation

26 May 2008

However, unless the water system where the licence is held has a water allocation restriction or water reservation, or a Ministry agency is willing to take on the responsibility of maintaining the works, abandoning the licence will not protect the water for instream uses. [...] They are subject to the rules in the Water Act and its regulations, the terms set out in the licence, orders of the comptroller and engineers designated under the Water Act, and the rights bestowed on all licences that have precedence or seniority.28 Applicants for a water licence must provide notice of the application, for example to other licensees or affected landowners, if the comptroller or r [...] While the Act and regulations are silent on the need to maintain instream flows for ecosystem function, regional water managers do regularly refuse licences because of concern about water flows.37 1.5 The Challenge of Water Conservation The principles of the Water Act remain largely unchanged since the Act’s enactment in the early 1900’s. [...] Given the existing data on water flows across the province and the large number of drainages on which the Ministry of Environment has already placed restrictions, the challenge in water conservation will be to rethink the existing allocation of water under licences to reflect the need to first secure instream flow requirements. [...] Licence conditions typically include: the name and location of the stream from which water may be taken or stored; the location of the intake on the stream; the priority date of the licence; the purpose(s) for which the water may be used; the maximum quantity of water that may be used or stored; the time of the year during which the water may be used; the property where the water is
agriculture environment government politics environmental governance wetlands governance conservation water rights water natural resources earth sciences ecology environmental degradation groundwater licences rivers water conservation ecosystem water use bc water governance land trusts environmental science ecological resilience conservation (ethic) river

Authors

Brandes, Oliver M

Pages
38
Published in
Canada

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