N.C. already needs fair, clear rules for water transfers
The state needs to set clearer ground rules for allowing water to be transferred from one river basin to another, but the numerous drafts through which a bill to amend the law has morphed during the past several months suggest the need for moving forward cautiously.
After all, water is liquid gold. Our economy and our very lives depend on it. Long a strained resource in places like the arid West, the demand for it even in lush areas like the Southeast is beginning to outstrip its supply. Decisions regarding it made today will reverberate for decades to come.
And we literally mean today, when The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources could vote on a version of the bill to amend the 1993 law that governs interbasin transfers. The current version of the bill would make it harder for a city to siphon water from a neighboring river basin, but it doesn’t place the bar so high that interbasin transfers would almost cease in North Carolina.
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