Hollow Victory - Water Conservation A Needed Program

I was reading the following article about water shortage issues in Atlanta, Harvesting rainwater to east Atlanta's water woes, when I was reminded about changes that the state of Massachusetts attempted to implement in the water withdrawal registration renewal process recently. You can read about that case here.

Starting with the case in MA. The courts found that the state had acted improperly in attempting to enforce conservation efforts on the renewal process for existing water withdrawal registrations that were simply being renewed. The court noted a few things, first, that the state could impose water conservation on anything that required a permit (permits being differentiated from registrations in that permits were issued for new water withdrawal requests and registrations were to continue withdrawals at levels that were in existence prior to the original state permit/registration process). The court also felt that the state could also place conservation requirements on registration renewals, but needed the regulations in place to do so. Ultimately, in January of this year, the court found that the state had not established such a regulation.

I see this as a hollow victory in two ways, first the towns that challenged the state simply delayed the inevitable. While ruling for the towns, the court clearly found the state could do what it had intended, it just had to follow the proper process. It is also a hollow victory as water is a limited resource, and conservation measures are needed whether imposed by the state or not. If existing local water use is not controlled there is limited water that will be available to support economic growth. Ultimately it means these towns beat the state, but did not really help themselves.

So how is this tied to the Atlanta article? Ultimately, the water conservation efforts we adopt will need to look at how we can contain the seasonal fluctation of rainfall, collect it, and then reuse it in the drier times of the year. This means finding ways to harvest run-off (which could reduce the flooding concerns we have experienced here in the Northeast this past spring), containing it, and then using the collected water for summertime irrigation - and removing irrigation from being a draw on the public water supply.

Some areas can clearly look to irrigation ponds. But this is not necessarily a good solution in residential neighborhoods (mosquitos illustrating one of many issues to consider). It may be more appropriate to consider requiring water containment as part of site design, whether for single family homes or commercial plazas. Underground cisterns could provide significant water storage opportunities. These devices could contain water that would usually runoff a property into our rivers and streams reducing flooding, and provide irrigation opportunities in drier months. This irrigation also providing some opportunities for groundwater recharge during these dry periods.

As we planners in MA start to think about meeting this 65 gallon per capita water use limit that was imposed prior to the court case, we need to start to build into our planning discussions real water conservation measures.