In North Carolina there are currently no fines, mandates, or any sort of regulation surrounding Duke Energy’s, as well other industries’, right to practice IBT. N.C industries and residents alike have total, uncontested access to a seemingly limitless supply of water from public surface water resources, and are able to do with it whatever they please without answering to any form of law or restrictive agency. Also, lack of records and regulation allows Duke Energy can to permanently remove millions of gallons of water from the Catawba-Wateree basin without a single drop of it being accounted for on a daily basis.
As a result, residents of the Charlotte-Piedmont area sit unaware as massive portions of local vital water resources are being permanently transferred from right under their feet to distant river basins, even as far as South Carolina. If the water security of the Catawba-Wateree river basin is to be ensured for coming decades, N.C water rights legislation must change to adjust for an expanding society, and regulation must become a routine practice concerning IBT operations.
Our policy recommends that Duke Energy, government, and other local stakeholders practicing IBT come together and devise an appropriate form of approach to installing regulatory agencies, laws, or any other form of regulatory body for IBT. Only through local collaboration will issues surrounding IBT anonymity be resolved and subsequently fixed. By correcting defunct water rights legislation, utilizing collaborative reasoning, and mandating a regulatory body, abusive IBT operations in the Catawba-Wateree Basin can hopefully come to an end in the near future.
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