South Carolina’s underground water resources get fresh scrutiny as demands increase.
Homeowners like Herrington generally don’t tap the same deep aquifers as water systems and industry, but the nature of the problem is the same.
It was the state’s first groundwater management plan.
Google’s request for permission to pull up to 1½ million gallons per day from the Charleston aquifer, to cool equipment at the company’s large data center in Berkeley County, is still pending.
In Berkeley County, 97 percent of aquifer water is used by industry.
Horry and Georgetown counties could see a management plan approved in September, 38 years after the state declared those counties a "capacity use area" where a groundwater management plan would be needed.
In capacity use areas, anyone wanting to withdraw more than 3 million gallons from an aquifer needs a permit, but there have been no declared limits on withdrawals and no permit request has ever been denied.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, from 1935 to 1968 in North Carolina "land subsidence measuring as much as 7 inches has been documented in the central Coastal Plain" and water level declines of up to 200 feet were recorded in aquifers.
As a result, in 2002, North Carolina approved a plan for 15 counties that called for eventually reducing demands on that area’s aquifer by 75 percent.
Reducing demand that greatly would impact public drinking water supplies, industries, agriculture and golf courses if South Carolina ever took such dramatic steps.