OPEN DIALOGUE ON MAINE WATER RESOURCES: THE WATER RESOURCES PLANNING COMMITTEE

The debate concerning large-scale withdrawals of ground water for a variety of human uses has been a heated one in Maine for the past several years, with the ultimate question being the sustainable nature of these withdrawals. Concerns about irrigation withdrawals in watersheds inhabited by endangered Atlantic salmon, and the perceived impacts of water bottling in other areas have escalated the debate. In response to these concerns, the Maine Legislature in the past several sessions has made important changes to regulations that govern ground water withdrawals. Notably in 2007, the Legislature passed a law that established a permitting process for significant non-agricultural wells (above 50,000 gallons/day), and that established the Water Resources Planning Committee (WRPC). The WRPC is a stakeholder group that brings together representatives from affected entities (irrigators, water bottlers, public water systems, environmental advocates) and regulators to review water withdrawal activities and carry out investigations that improve our understanding of the resource. As part of this effort, the WRPC built on a watersheds-at-risk analysis of water supply and demand that identified, from a total of 973 watersheds statewide, less than one-dozen watersheds in southern Maine that may experience problems. The WRPC selected several of these watersheds for additional work by the Maine Geological Survey to better characterize aquifers and directly measure stream flows. With these additional data, we will build improved water budgets for the watersheds as a step toward assessing sustainability of uses.