{"id":61271,"date":"2022-01-03T17:01:09","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T22:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61271"},"modified":"2022-01-03T17:01:09","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T22:01:09","slug":"bcs-effort-to-license-water-use-falling-apart-critics-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61271","title":{"rendered":"BC\u2019s Effort to License Water Use Falling Apart, Critics Say"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BC\u2019s Effort to License Water Use Falling Apart, Critics Say<\/a><\/h3>\n

Liberals, Greens agree a crisis looms for thousands of farmers and other water users.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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With less than two months until new rules take effect, some 16,000 BC users are at risk of losing their right to water for irrigation and other critical needs.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Ted McGrath<\/a>, Creative Commons licensed.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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B.C.\u2019s opposition parties want the government to extend \u2014 for a second time \u2014 an approaching groundwater licensing deadline, warning of a looming crisis for local farms and small businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just deeply concerned,\u201d said Shirley Bond, the interim leader of the BC Liberal Party, in an interview. \u201cWe want them to extend the deadline, but additionally we want them to do a better job of getting the information out there and finding people who haven\u2019t registered and help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Existing users of groundwater, generally from wells or dugouts, for agriculture, industry or business have until March 1 to get licences or risk losing access to water. The requirement is part of changes to the province\u2019s Water Sustainability Act that came into force in 2016.<\/p>\n

But less than 25 per cent of the estimated 20,000 water users, some of whom have been drawing groundwater for generations, have applied for licences.<\/p>\n

By mid-December, only around 4,300 had applied, up just slightly from\u00a0September<\/a>\u00a0and last\u00a0summer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2016 groundwater users were given a three-year transition period to apply for a licence, a policy that recognized their historic use and brought them under the regulations with fewer requirements than new users would face. If they didn\u2019t get a licence, they would lose guaranteed access to the water and have to re-apply, facing the risk of long delays and being denied water rights.<\/p>\n

In 2019, when that special treatment was previously set to end, the government extended the deadline and gave users until March 1, 2022, to apply.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BC\u2019s Effort to License Water Use Falling Apart, Critics Say Liberals, Greens agree a crisis looms for thousands of farmers and other water users. With less than two months until new rules take effect, some 16,000 BC users are at risk of losing their right to water for irrigation and other critical needs.\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Ted McGrath, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11645,94,5499,866,32384],"class_list":["post-61271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-andrew-macleod","tag-british-columbia","tag-the-tyee","tag-water","tag-water-licensing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61272,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61271\/revisions\/61272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}