What the Heck are Registrations, How Did We Get Here?

In March, 1986 the Water Management Act (WMA) was enacted by the Massachusetts Legislature following the recommendation of a Blue Ribbon Commission appointed by the Governor to address the increasing conflicts over the Commonwealth’s limited water resources. The Act requires the  Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to regulate the quantity of water withdrawn from both surface and groundwater supplies as a single integrated system. Existing water users were granted registrations based on their average annual water use between 1981-1985. This usage was then exempted from  the law’s new regulations. 

New or increased water withdrawals approved since 1996 must receive a permit and DEP must condition those withdrawals. Among other things, conditions require permit holders to minimize their impact on the environment. There are now more than 900 registered & permitted water users in the state, but a majority are still governed only by registrations which remain exempt from any conditions on their use. 

In the Ipswich River Watershed more than 80% of water withdrawals are registered and thus exempt from any conditions. This means that water taken from a shared aquifer which serves 350,000 residents and businesses is largely unregulated even during abnormally dry to extreme drought conditions. At a recent meeting of the WMA Advisory Committee, MassDEP shared their intention to make registrations more equitable and aligned with the reality of the climate crisis. 

Registrations must be renewed every ten years to remain valid and current registrations will expire on December 31st, 2021. Why are we talking about registrations now? The way the law works, the only time that DEP can make changes is at these ten year intervals. Ipswich River has been advocating for these much needed changes to registrations ever since the law was passed.

What Will Change, and What Won’t?

The proposed conditions on registrations will align water registrations with the recommendations in the state’s Drought Management Plan. MassDEP will require registrations to impose water restrictions on non-essential or discretionary water use based on the Drought Management Plan’s drought levels and indices. The drier it is, the more restrictive water use will be. The goal is to have consistent language and equitable responses to water scarcity in communities that share a common water resource like the Ipswich River. 

Duane LeVangie, program chief of water management for MassDEP summed it up this way, “what we’re talking about, essentially, is lawn watering.”

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