Today, the Senate will take up the fatally flawed drought management bill.
Until water supply issues are addressed, and it is determined
whether solutions to supply-side issues would solve potential
drought problems, no demand-side legislation should be enacted.
This is a knee-jerk, hastily drafted bill that tries to divert any
blame away from the government and its failure on water supply
management, and instead increase governmental power to violate property
rights, limit freedom, and create the water police.
Here are just some things the bill would allow:
–
A “water shortage emergency” would exist if there is a water shortage
that poses a minor threat to a poisonous weed. This is just one
example–I can come up with others. The definition of “water
shortage emergency” is so broad it could cover tons of unimportant
issues.
– The bill provides zero oversight over the Governor when he makes a decision that an emergency exists.
– Private well owners almost certainly could be regulated under the
latest version of the bill. The bill doesn’t have to expressly
state that regulation of private wells is allowed for the regulation to
be permitted. Language that expressly prohibited regulation of
private wells was removed by the Senate–think that’s just an innocent
change?
– The government would be able to force private water companies to
provide water to the government when a public water system is
experiencing an “emergency.” It would be possible for one water
system to be forced to give up so much water that instead of one system
with an emergency, both systems would be faced with an “emergency.”
One point about a related provision that apparently already exists in the law:
A
member of the Environmental Management Commission (EMC) has the right
to go onto any private property to check watersheds. It doesn’t
matter if there isn’t a problem with the watershed, so long as it helps
study water issues.
At the end of the day, North Carolina will be one step closer to having the water police–and no, they do not live inside of my head.
