As part of government’s phased approach to implementing the Water Sustainability Act (WSA), four papers outlining proposed new policies are now available on the WSA blog for public comment.

The proposed policies address groundwater licensing, groundwater protection, dam safety, and compliance and enforcement. They update, and in some cases supplement, existing policies.

Government proposes to include these policies in new regulations under the Water Sustainability Act, which will come into force in 2016.

Once these initial regulations are completed, government will work on other components required to fully implement the WSA.

Comments on these four papers will be accepted until Sept. 8, 2015, at: http://engage.gov.bc.ca/watersustainabilityact/

Water pricing is not the focus of these papers, but will be reviewed in a separate process.