5.3 Water Use Plans

A Water Use Plan is a formal agreement that clarifies how water will be shared among water licensees while still providing adequate flows for fish and wildlife. A water licensee leads the planning process. The overarching goal of a Water Use Plan is to find “a better balance between competing uses of water, such as domestic water supply, fish and wildlife, recreating, heritage and electrical power needs, which are environmentally, socially and economically acceptable to British Columbians”.⁶ As such, Water Use Plans can help resolve conflicts among competing water users. To be effective, the plans need to consider all water uses and water licencees within a specified watercourse or watershed, as well as instream flow requirements for fish and aquatic ecosystems.

A watershed-based approach is particularly relevant because it includes all water uses, including instream environmental flows. The water use planning process has provided valuable information about environmental flow requirements in many of BC’s water systems. Water Use Plans may result in an agreement to amend a water license, resulting in a change in legal rights. They can also support water use regulation through voluntary changes to water use within existing water rights.⁷ The Guidelines state that if there are financial impacts on the licensee related to a reduction in water rights, compensation for losses will be an important consideration.

The Water Use Plan process could be broadly applied to other licence holders in BC because it has shown “great promise in dealing with conflicts among owners of water licences and non-licenced users of water, such as fish and aquatic resources”.⁸ Local and regional governments may also develop Water Use Plans. For example, the District of Summerland in the Okanagan region used the water use planning process for Trout Creek (Summerland Water Use Plan). “Metro is developing a Joint Water Use Plan for the Seymour and Capilano Watersheds. This Water Use Plan is about how the reservoirs and dams are operated, how water is released from the reservoirs and how it is allocated (as examples: drinking water, fisheries habitat, proposed power generation). . . . The planning process will explore whether and how hydropower generation from existing reservoirs can be accommodated within Metro Vancouver’s commitment to: continue to supply clean, safe drinking water, protect fish habitat, adapt to climate variability and climate change. Other community interests such as recreation, culture and heritage, and safety, will be reviewed within the context of the planning process. “ (Metro Vancouver Water Use Plan).

To date, all Water Use Plans have been prepared for surface water resources. This type of planning process is unlikely to be applicable to groundwater resources within current contexts. Although the Water Act vests ownership of both surface and groundwater to the province of British Columbia, the Act does not require a licence to withdraw and use subsurface water. However, groundwater regulation is within the scope of the Water Act Modernization initiative. Assessing the role of groundwater resources in maintaining instream flows and related surface water values is extremely complicated. Therefore, Water Use Plans may be an inappropriate or impractical approach to planning for groundwater resources at this time. However, some of the other characteristics and benefits of Water Use Plans could potentially be adapted to plan for and manage groundwater resources. Facilitating collaborative, multi-sector planning to achieve a balance across multiple water users and management goals is a key attribute of Water Use Plans that could be adapted to groundwater strategies.

As of 2010, 24 Water Use Plans had been completed for BC Hydro facilities.⁹ For more information on these plans see: Water Use Planning or BC Hydro Water Use Plans.