Natural Resources Leadership Institute

Central Coastal Plain Capacity Use Area Stakeholder Committee

The Issue
Ground water withdrawals from the confined aquifers in North Carolina’s Central Coastal Plain have exceeded the rate at which they are recharging.  Significant long term withdrawals in the Black Creek and Upper Cape Fear aquifers have resulted in salt water encroachment near pumping centers, aquifer dewatering, and extreme loss of well yield by public water system operators.   These aquifers have long been a main supplier of fresh water to cities, industries, and farms in the region encompassed by the following 15 North Carolina counties: Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Duplin, Edgecombe, Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Martin, Onslow, Pamlico, Pitt, Washington, Wayne and Wilson.

To prevent significant aquifer dewatering and saltwater intrusion, the Environmental Management Commission, the state’s environmental rulemaking body, established a 15-county capacity use area and granted the Division of Water Resources (DWR) permit authority under the North Carolina Water Use Act in 1999.    

Later that year DWR sought to move ahead with the development of rules governing water allocation in the newly designated Central Coastal Plain Capacity Use Area. The Division proposed a ground water withdrawal permitting program that would allocate withdrawals based on hydrogeologic analysis and computer ground water flow modeling.    Major water users including municipalities, industries, and irrigators were concerned that the proposed permitting program was too vague and left too many uncertainties for future planning.  They expressed the concern that decisions would be made without adequate scientific information and stakeholder input.  An ad hoc group of stakeholders represented by the NC League of Municipalities and industrial and agricultural leaders requested the Division to reformulate their proposed rule with their input.  In January 2000, the Central Coastal Plain Capacity Use Area (CCPCUA) Stakeholder Committee was convened to review alternatives for permitting withdrawals and attempt to formulate a recommended rule to the Environmental Management commission. (Click here for a link to the CCPCUA website).

Stakeholders
The CCPCUA Stakeholder Committee consisted of a broad range of stakeholders who represented various interests regarding use and conservation of water resources in the central coastal plain of NC.

Convenor
NC Division of Water Quality

Municipal/Residential
- Onslow County Water and Sewer Department
- City of Washington Water Resources Department
- Eastern Carolina Council
- NC Rural Water Association
- Wayne Water Districts
- NC Association of County Commissioners
- NC League of Municipalities

Commercial/Industry
- National Spinning Company
- Global Tanspark
- DuPont Company
- Manufactures and Chemical Industries Council
- NC Aggregates Association
- PCS Phosphate
- NC Homebuilders Association
- Weyerhaeuser Company

Agricultural
- NC Farm Bureau Federation
- Farmer, EdgecombeCo
- Carolina Catfish

Environmental
- NC Coastal Federation

Resource Advisors
- Dan Boone, The Wooten Company
- Alex Cardinell, US Geological Survey
- Richard Spruill, East Carolina University
- Gerald Strickland, US Geological Survey
- Ryan Turner, NC Environmental Management Commission

Facilitators
- Nan Freeland,  Natural Resources Leadership Institute, NC State University
- Steve Smutko, Natural Resources Leadership Institute, NC State University

Methods and Process
The Division of Water Resources contracted with the Natural Resources Leadership Institute to conduct a situation assessment, and design and lead a negotiated decision process for developing a CCPCUA rule.  The stakeholder committee was convened in January 2000 and met weekly from February 7 to April 3, 2000 for a total of eight meetings  The committee adopted a committee charter that specified roles and responsibilities of the participants, sponsor, and resource advisors, decision rules, meeting ground rules, and logistics.  The charter specified three standards for its ultimate product: (1) that the aquifers are protected from dewatering and salt water intrusion and assure their long term maximum productivity; (2) that rules be fair to all types and sizes of water users and meet the region's economic goals to the greatest extent possible; (3)and that they be reasonably simple, understandable to the public, and practical to administer.

Key issues negotiated were the physical parameters that would be used to regulate withdrawals such as CUA boundary, establishment of baseline data, total withdrawal, well location, timing of withdrawals, and well depth; water metering, reporting, and monitoring; and rule enforcement.

Results and Outcomes
The main contents of the proposed rules were as follows (click here for a copy of the final rule).

• The proposed rules established a permit system for ground water withdrawals exceeding 100,000 gallons per day.
• The rules adopted a graduated approach and stated prescriptive regulations for reducing ground water use over a 16-year period. The rules called for three rounds of reductions in ground water withdrawals resulting in a 75 percent reduction in ground water use in the area defined as the dewatering zone.
• In addition to the ground water permitting requirements, surface and ground water users who withdraw more than 10,000 gallons per day and are not subject to the permitting provisions will be required to register their water use.

Two public hearings were held to gather public comment on the committee’s proposed rule.  Several interest groups spoke out against the new rule, notably a coalition of small municipalities that felt that their interests were not represented on the stakeholder committee (click here for a link to the hearing officer's final report). 

Process Challenges and Actions
Challenge: Movement and recharge of ground water are unobservable phenomena.  Few people have a clear understanding of general hydrogeologic concepts, and the multi-layered aquifer systems characterizing the cretaceous aquifers presented its own confounding problems.
Action: The committee established a technical subcommittee led by independent scientists that all stakeholders could trust to lead them through the joint fact-finding phase of the process.  Resource advisors were available at each meeting to help the committee develop solutions to protect the aquifer.
Challenge: To meet a legislatively established calendar for rulemaking, the committee was faced with an expedited time frame for submitting its recommendations to the EMC.  This forced the committee to meet weekly for a period of two months.  
Action:  To highlight the importance of constituent communication, committee members opened the meetings with a on their communication activities and constituent feedback from the previous week.

Lessons Learned
An advisory panel of scientists able to convey complex technical concepts to a lay audience was a critical component of the success of this process.  Advice and guidance from trusted scientists reduced the conflict among the stakeholders and enabled them to focus on workable solutions.

The expedited time frame for establishing the CCPCUA rule left little time for negotiators to brief their constituents between meetings and bring their concerns back to the table.  The recommendations adopted by the committee radically departed from the status quo, and many stakeholders were unprepared to comply with the new rule, requiring a series of post settlement negotiations.  Although the process designers attempted to mitigate constituent communication problems, the time frame was too compressed to realistically accommodate sufficient communication among negotiators and their constituents.

 

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