T218 Advances in Hydrology and Sustainable Water Management in Coastal Environments

Wednesday, 7 November 2012
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
207A

MANAGING GROUNDWATER RESOURCES IN THE NORTH CAROLINA CENTRAL COASTAL PLAIN CAPACITY USE AREA: A PARTICIPATORY INVESTMENT IN THE SUSTAINABILITY OF WATER RESOURCES

Paper number: T218-9
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:00 AM – 10:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

Water has always been abundant in eastern North Carolina. Eocene and Cretaceous aquifers have provided high quantity and quality groundwater. However, as the coastal areas of North Carolina grow, so too has the demand. Decades of increased and unregulated withdrawal has exceeded the recharge to the aquifers, causing low yields, declining water levels, saltwater intrusion and threatened the future water availability in 15 counties in the Coastal Plain. Initial attempts by the North Carolina Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to enact a permitting requirement and withdrawal restrictions were met with public resistance. To develop an acceptable, protective and enforceable management scheme, DENR created the Central Coastal Plain Capacity Use Area (CCPCUA) to regulate water withdrawal in the 15 threatened counties. DENR tasked stakeholders with creating the management rules governing the CCPCUA. The stakeholder group successfully developed a plan that users and regulators found fair, protective of the long term availability of the aquifers, understandable, and relatively easy to administer.

This study evaluates the use of procedural justice to resolve groundwater resource conflicts in the central Coastal Plain. The process of stakeholder consensus that led to the creation of the CCPCUA rule is assessed through participant interviews, including facilitators, scientists, state agency representatives and members of the stakeholder group. Groundwater levels in the CCPCUA are then used to evaluate the effects of the rule on water quantity over a ~10-year period. Groundwater levels in CCPCUA are at various stages of recovery, indicating that the rule is achieving its intended goal of reducing groundwater withdrawals to a sustainable rate of use. As growing populations place increased stresses on finite coastal resources, effective procedures such as those highlighted in this study will be vital for achieving enforceable resource management policies that are embraced by local communities.