Water for Wine: wells and sustainable viticulture
As many British Columbia vineyard operators are aware, the provincial government’s 2014 Water Sustainability Act introduces a requirement for commercial groundwater well owners to register their well(s). The deadline for registration has been extended several times, and now has a hard stop of March 1, 2022.
The critical takeaway for operators who are considering registering their well but have not yet done so: if you wait until past the March 1 deadline, you lose all rights (including preferred use) previously associated with your well.
This post is not intended to convince operators one way or the other about registering their well; it is intended to provide some context to the overarching policy, and to share some resources to operators wishing to register. However, consultants I heard from are recommending registration to their clients. Much useful information is available in a recent webinar hosted by Fortify Conference which brought together a consulting hydrologist and representatives of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries (YouTube link).
Any application subsequent to March 1 will be deemed a New Use Application, which is time-consuming, expensive, and offers no guarantee it will be approved, as the right to draw water from the well will be considered behind in rights to other pre-existing wells. The application will be evaluated in the context of priorities and strategies for water-scarce areas (which in 2021 included the Okanagan and Cowichan valleys – two of B.C.’s nine defined Geographic Indications for wine making.)
The B.C. Ministry of Environment has been pursuing an area-based and watershed-based management approach for groundwater for several years, culminating in the Water Sustainability Act (entered into force in 2016). Authority and decision making are distributed across several ministries: Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations for some uses, and Agriculture, Food and Fisheries for viticulture and other agriculture. Overall, water licensing is viewed by the provincial government through the lens of protection of water resources across geographies and users, including a variety of commercial uses. In a climate-constrained world, as evidenced by recent summers in the B.C. interior – especially the extreme low-water 2021 – a more proactive management approach has been deemed essential for sustainable water resources in British Columbia well into the future (surface water has been regulated for over 100 years in BC).
In terms of the philosophy of groundwater use, the principle of “first in time, first in right” has been retained in the Act. However, in a subtle-to-some but major legal shift, the previous common law ownership by a private landowner to his/her well and groundwater have essentially been revoked in favour of the provincial Crown’s assertion of ownership rights. Flowing from this (no pun intended), commercial well owners are now required to apply for a license to continue to operate their wells.
Why the regulatory change?
The first answer that comes to mind is that while sustainable water management is the long term objective, at the outset the well registration requirement is a data-gathering exercise. The government doesn’t actually know how many commercial wells are in operation in the province, nor does it have a precise understanding of how much groundwater is used by commercial operators. Once a baseline set of data has been acquired, licensees will be on the radar, and can in future expect to pay (perhaps more) for their water usage.
There is more: the Act provides that licensed users must use their water for “beneficial uses” ranked in order of purpose (water for irrigation for grape growing is a permitted use, ranked third after domestic and waterworks), but rights may be cancelled if unused for three consecutive years. Here lies one of the first complications: if water use is halted by a vineyard operator for that period of time, perhaps due to circumstances such as replanting, other land improvements or a transfer of ownership, they may lose their license. Also note that under the Act, use of groundwater for irrigation is deemed a separate use (ranked higher) than groundwater used by wineries in their cellars for winemaking (deemed commercial).
Applications for Water Rental License
The regulation sets out a fee structure for water “rentals” based on volume of use. According to a consulting hydrologist who works with agricultural clients in the Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys, the annual rental rates do not appear to be onerous: for a 12 hectare/30 acre vineyard on drip irrigation, the rental fee is around $50 per year. For a commercial operation using process water (winery, restaurant) the fee is in the range of $200 per year.
Existing Use Applications are a relatively easy pathway to registering an operating well, requiring some evidence that the well was used prior to 2016 and delineating the property, well and works associated with the use of water. On completing the registration process (available online), an invoice is generated for retroactive rental of the water from 2016 to the time of application.
Unfortunately, New Use Applications are onerous, requiring significant evaluation and testing work which takes a minimum of one year, and can result in fees of $100,000 or more. (The application fees range from $250 to $1,000 depending on anticipated volume from the well). A change in crop on the property (e.g. from alfalfa to grapevines) is deemed to require a New Use Application.
Application Resources and Process
The webinar referenced and linked above contains detailed information on the application process and resources to generate some of the information required for the application. The provincial overall Water Licenses and Approvals information page is here. Of particular interest to grape growers, the Ministry of Agriculture’s BC Agriculture Water Calculator is a map-based tool that helps applicants estimate their anticipated water use by property size, crop type, irrigation type and soil type. The BC Irrigation Water Use Calculator is available from the main BC Water Calculator landing page.
Here lies a second complication: while relatively comprehensive, the Agriculture Water Calculator appears not to account for differing soil types within one property (i.e. one vineyard). There may be specific information about this on an individual basis from staff at the Ministry of Agriculture, but there appears to be no way to account for multiple soil types implying varying irrigation needs and therefore volume of water used during the growing season.
The Okanagan Valley in particular is comprised of complex and geologically diverse soil and subsurface types, making it one of the most exciting emerging wine regions around the world. It would appear the regulatory setting for irrigation may need to introduce more flexibility to take account of the (literal) reality on and below the ground. Experienced operators will already have a good understanding of the heterogeneity and water retention of soil and subsoil across their vineyards. As a consultant told me: the principal irrigation concern for groundwater use is the rate of recharge of the well, implying a need for operators to quantify the amount and sources of groundwater, as a slowly recharging aquifer can impact different soil types and crops in different ways.
The objectives of BC’s groundwater management regime are clearly aimed at protecting existing activities – viticultural and other agricultural – for the future, a critical facet of the sustainability of grape growing and wine making in the water-scarce Okanagan and Cowichan Valleys. However, a balance still needs to be established between the standardization of the regulatory process for that essential ingredient – water – and the flexibility afforded vineyard and winery operators to continue on the trajectory of growth and quality improvement for wine produced in all of BC’s wine regions.
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