LANSING, Mich. — A group called Southwest Michigan Farmers for Responsible Water Use, Inc. has begun a multiyear study that will be used by the state to fine-tune its water withdrawal assessment tool (WWAT), an integral part of Michigan’s water use program for farmers and other large water users.

 

Earlier this year the Michigan Farm Bureau (MFB) and its membership identified and discussed challenges with water use in southwestern Michigan, a region vital to the state’s agriculture industry.

Ever since the inception and implementation of the WWAT in 2009, farmers and other business users of groundwater in Michigan have complained that the online tool is both restrictive and seemingly arbitrary, at times.

The group’s three-year project will refine the WWAT’s screening process by collecting data from monitoring wells and creating models to take into account local geologic and groundwater characteristics in five major watersheds in and around Cass County, in the state’s southwestern corner. The area includes small portions of northwestern Indiana.

The Southwest group has already collected data in nearby St. Joseph County; this will be combined with new data collected by the current study and will be capable of representing the hydrogeology of southwestern Michigan. State officials have agreed to use data from the study for its site-specific reviews.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) requires the socalled site-specific review when a farmer or other business uses the WWAT to try to get permission to dig a well on their property and is rejected. The site-specific review is a more lengthy and costly endeavor. The new model, once implemented, is supposed to reduce the difficulty of the whole process for businesses; it should reduce the barriers and cost for withdrawal registrations, while ensuring continued responsible management of water resources and ecological protection, the group says.

This project more than two years in the making, with negotiations taking place between the Michigan Soybean Promotion Committee and Corn Marketing Program of Michigan, as well as both Michigan and U.S. Geological Surveys participating. These stakeholders hope the project will improve the system’s accuracy and better ensure that users of large volumes of groundwater can access the water they need without causing harm to the environment.

Businesses with the capacity to withdraw more than 100,000 gallons per day of water are required to report to the state the withdrawals and water conservation practices of their pumps. This was initially begun in 1994.

In December 2005 the regional Great Lakes Compact put an additional mandate on Michigan, surrounding states and Canada to ensure that Great Lakes waters are used responsibly.

The so-called Annex 2001 provides protections for the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin, which includes a ban on new diversions of water outside the Basin, and stipulated that each state must create a program to manage and regulate new or increased large water withdrawals.

Michigan officials decided that to fulfill its obligations under the Compact, all water users having a capacity to withdraw water quantities averaging 100,000 gallons per day must report use on an annual basis to the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development or DEQ, depending on the type of business.

For any proposed new or increased volume large capacity pumps, a business must also use the WWAT prior to installation, and subsequent reporting.