Big water users dig in to keep tap wide open

Legislators study law that includes permits, limits

The biggest water users — power plants, industries, water treatment plants, large farms — pull millions of gallons of water from the state's rivers and streams each day.

They are now pulling on legislators' sleeves to keep from being controlled.

The General Assembly is considering a law that would create a permitting system and set withdrawal limits for large surface water users. It would potentially tighten those limits in drought conditions. The largest users don't like it. Lobbyists for everyone from SCE&G to the South Carolina Farm Bureau are digging in as bills work their way through House and Senate committees.

The law already has been reworked to exempt hydropower generators, agriculture and sand mining from the permits.

Bud Badr, hydrology section chief for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, the agency that wrote the first draft, said DNR is concerned about legislative changes such as the exclusions, which are allowances for some large users to keep drawing the same amount of water during drought and a relaxing of state control over inter-basin transfers, piping water from one river basin to another.

One of the objectives of the law is to make sure that in a drought "water users share the pain," Badr said.

The users object.

"Electric generation is such a critical component of the state's infrastructure. We don't see where there's a need to require power-producing companies to go through that process," said Eric Boomhower, SCE&G public affairs manager.

"It's critical that the state's farmers be considered priority water users," said David Winkles, farm bureau president. "We're dealing with a living community. If it needs water, it's got to have water. It's just as important as the species in the stream."

Smaller users, such as the Mount Pleasant Waterworks, which buys surface water from the Charleston Water System, don't like the exemptions.

"We are all water users, the folks who use it for power generation, the folks who use it for agriculture, the folks who use it for water treatment, and as such I think we all ought to be accountable to the people of South Carolina for how we use that resource," said Clay Duffie, waterworks general manager.

"You can live without electricity. You can live without food for three weeks. But you can't live without water. From where I sit, people have to be the top of my list," he said.

Santee Cooper, a power generator as well as a water provider, and the Charleston Water System can live with the law, so far, company and agency representatives say.

"We're OK with it as written. We'll just keep monitoring it," said Molly Gore, of Santee Cooper corporate communications.

"There's nothing that would negatively impact our operations," Andy Fairey, Charleston Water System chief operating officer told his commissioners in a late January meeting. "Everyone is getting involved in looking at this bill, but the general consensus is that it needs to be done."

The legislative battle is the latest tug of war to break out in a series of intrastate and interstate disputes that began with the 1998-2002 drought and have been exacerbated by the current drought. Booming development is straining water supplies and observers worry the region is edging toward the sort of "water wars" that have flared up in Western states for years.

The Legislature is drafting the law as Georgia and North Carolina work on similar legislation. Those states share surface water with South Carolina.

The state sued North Carolina last spring over a permit that would allow the Tar Heel State to pump as much as 36 million gallons per day from the Catawba River, which supplies water to cities in both states, as well as the Lowcountry. At the bottom of a two-state-long Catawba chain of lakes is Lake Moultrie and the Cooper River, where Santee Cooper and Charleston Water System plants supply most of the drinking water for the Lowcountry.

The lawsuit is before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"It puts us in a tough (legal) position if they have limits on their waters and we don't," said state Sen. Wes Hayes, R-Rock Hill, who is sponsoring the Senate version of the law.

Hayes acknowledged the bill is controversial. "Any time you talk about regulating something that's not regulated now, people get concerned," he said.

Mark Plowden, the state attorney general's communication director, said the office is involved with the bill but that he couldn't say any more because of the pending Supreme Court litigation.

David Slade contributed to this report. Reach Bo Petersen at bpetersen@postandcourier.com or 745-5852.