Daniel Prince
Council will create a river basin plan
The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources has announced dates for two public meetings to provide citizens with an overview of a new water planning framework to guide surface water management in the Broad River Basin over the next 50 years. The meetings will also be a chance to identify volunteers interested in serving on a council to develop and implement the plan for the Broad River Basin. Meetings are scheduled at the Cooperative Conference Center in the City of Columbia on Monday, November 8 from 6-8 p.m., and at the 1881 Event Hall in the City of Spartanburg on Tuesday, November 9 from 6-8 p.m.
Each River Basin Plan will be created and overseen by a River Basin Council, a working group of stakeholders with water interests in the basin. The Edisto River Basin was the first to implement the new planning framework, and the Broad River Basin was selected to be next, followed by the Pee Dee River Basin early next year.
The plan will address four basic questions. What is the basin’s current available water supply and demand? What are the current permitted and registered water uses within the basin? What will be the water demand in the basin throughout the Planning Horizon and will the available water supply be adequate to meet that demand? And what water management strategies will be employed in the basin to ensure the available supply meets or exceeds future projected demand?
The Broad River Basin is composed of Spartanburg, Cherokee, and Union counties, along with parts of Greenville, Laurens, Newberry, Lexington, Richland, Fairfield, Chester, and York counties.