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Dr Drapers Action List to Strengthen Water Laws and Avert Interstate Encroachment

In my opinion, FOLKS should apply itself to making sure that the State of South Carolina has adopted the laws and policies that will place it in a good bargaining position before the U.S. Supreme Court (which I might add would also add to her bargaining power in any negotiations with both Georgia and North Carolina). I discussed most of these briefly at the end of my talk,

Laws and Policies

A. Surface water permitting of withdrawals above 100,000 gallons per day. No one, to include agricultural irrigation, should be exempt.

B. Water should be managed according to consumptive use, not just withdrawals.

C. There should be specific standards for conservation, as well as reuse. A gray-water standard might be placed on lawn and garden watering (irrigation) in new developments.

D. There must be a specific standard policy statement on storage of water as a drought protection strategy.

E. Some limit should be imposed on interbasin transfer and the limit should be based on limiting harm to the basin of origin.

F. The SC State Water Plan should be more specific and should impose mandatory, not only voluntary, standards. The State Water Plan should be organized as follows.

1. Water Rights Structure
2. Integrated Management
3. Water Availability Assessment
4. Water Supply
a. Water Allocation – Withdrawal Permit Program
b. Water Storage & Delivery
c. Interbasin Transfer with Basin-of-Origin Protection
5. Water Use
a. Reasonable & Beneficial Use
b. Role of Economics in Water Management
6. Conservation & Reuse
a. Programs for Water Use Efficiency
b. Consumptive Use & Return Flows
7. Water Quality
a. Clean Water Act Implementation
b. Instream Flow
8. Water-based Recreation
9. Wetland & Riparian Zone Management
10. Ecosystem Management & Instream Flow
11. Extreme Conditions

Again, thanks for inviting me to participate. If I can be of any service to FOLKS, just ask.

Regards,

Stephen Draper

FOLKS has attached Dr Drapers resume as provided when he was a Forum Speaker

Stephen E. Draper is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Georgia Tech School of Civil Engineering and the Georgia State University School of Law. His professional qualifications include a B.S., M.S.C.E., M.B.A., Ph.D., J.D. and registration as a P.E. in Georgia and Florida. He has had a forty-year career in water science, engineering, law and policy as well as the military, professional organizations, and the public and private sectors within the United States and overseas.
Stephen Draper was a member of Clean Water Initiative, whose recommendations served as the basis of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District. He served as a voting member of the Joint Study Committee, for Comprehensive Statewide Water Planning. As an advocate for the pubic interest, he wrote a minority report to the Committee’s final report that insisted water be managed as a public resource, not a private commodity.
As an author and editor, Draper has served for a decade on a national initiative of the American Society of Civil Engineers in the publication of the Regulated Riparian Model Water Code (ASCE, 1997) and the Appropriative Rights Model Water Code (2002). He currently serves as the Chair of the national committee studying interstate water compacts and is the editor and principal author of Model Water Sharing Agreements for the Twenty-first Century (ASCE, 2002) and the forthcoming (2005) Water Sharing in Times of Scarcity: Guidelines and Procedures for Effective Water Sharing Agreement.
He is the founder of the Stephen E. Draper UGA Library Center & Archives for the Waters of Georgia in History, Law & Policy; Georgia’s Rivers, Aquifers and Wetlands, University of Georgia Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Athens, GA.