Water Supply Coordinating Council
The state's Water Supply Coordinating Council held its inaugural meeting on June 24, 2004, a year after legislation passed and was signed by the Governor establishing a council with statewide representation and chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC).
The Council focuses on updating water availability and demand projections for the remainder of the state to identify any area that may be susceptible to drought impacts as has previously impacted the northern part of the state. The three primary study areas will be Middletown-Odessa-Townsend (MOT), central Kent, and coastal Sussex. DNREC has already commissioned the Delaware Geological Survey (DGS) to conduct these studies and DGS has released its updated report on Ground Water Availability in Kent County.
The Council is charged with achieving the goal of water supply self-sufficiency in northern New Castle County by 2010, and with reporting bi-annually on plans to address current and future water supply and water demand issues in areas of southern New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County. The Council is scheduled to conclude its work by Jan. 1, 2010.
One of the most important accomplishments of the WSCC was to see the dedication of the Newark Reservoir in April 2006.
Lt. Gov. John Carney – who was involved very early on in the efforts to improve the water supply of New Castle County when he was with county government – gave the keynote address. Also speaking was former Newark Mayor Ron Gardner, who pledged during his terms in office, starting in 1991, to see that Newark’s chronic water problems were solved once and for all.
As of the dedication those problems have been solved with the help of the WSCC. The Newark Reservoir adds over 300 million gallons of supply to the system.
The “Water Self-Sufficiency Act” required water conservation rates be established for all utilities effected by drought emergencies, and that future water supply needs for northern New Castle County be identified past 2020. All five water utilities in New Castle County now have some form of conservation rates in place. The utilities have all submitted the first of their two certifications of self sufficiency (the first in 2006 and the last in 2009) Their first submissions are pending approval by the WSCC in 2007.
Lastly: water use restrictions. However successful they were in helping cope with the drought of 2002, they were still found by water customers to be too confusing and by DNREC to be unnecessarily difficult to administer. The Green Industry lent its assistance to DNREC over the winter of 2004 in developing a much more streamlined and simplified set of rules to be adopted as necessary.The expectation is that Delaware should not have to impose any mandatory water use restrictions even with a recurrence of a 2002 drought. These rules may be found Three-Tier Water Use Rules.
The Water Supply Coordinating Council has been praised by the Governor and the Secretary of DNREC as being the most effective public-private organization that has ever functioned in Delaware. The Council's progress reports, with extensive detail on this subject, may be viewed at the University of Delaware’s Water Resources Agency web site by going to www.wr.udel.edu and clicking "Publications."
