A looming March deadline for British Columbians to register their water wells threatens to become a big problem for government, as well as thousands of rural farmers, ranchers, and small businesses.

Ted Van Der Gulik with the non-profit group ‘Partnership for Water Sustainability’ says, under the now five-year-old Water Sustainability Act, new non-domestic wells – those for anything other than personal use – must have a water licence as of March 1, 2022.

“There’s 20,000 estimated wells out there that are ‘non-domestic’ that would have to apply,” he said, on the NL Noon Report. “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere close to that so everyone that doesn’t is taking a bit of a risk for sure.”

Wells drilled before 2016 can be grandfathered in but people need to apply for that to happen. These changes apply to farmers, ranchers, small businesses, and others in areas away from water systems.

“A lot of people think well I’m already in there because my well is registered. All wells need to be registered, even domestic wells, and there’s no cost to registering your well,” Van Der Gulik added.

“But if it’s non-domestic you also need the license and so it’s the licensing we’re talking about. So people get registration and licensing mixed up.”

Van Der Gulik says the provincial government will also need to make a big investment to manage the program.

“I don’t think they can truly get out of it, but we need to put resources to it. We need more people to adjudicate licenses, we need people to go out and go after people who aren’t licensed because otherwise people are going to think why bother licensing they’re not enforcing so we need staff there,” he said. “We need really – money to investigate how much water we have in certain aquifers so its easier for the adjudicator to actually issue a license.”

“Right now you’re kind of guaranteed a license but come March 1 you actually are not.”

After a previous extension and with only five months left to the March 1 deadline, less than a quarter of the people that have to apply have done so.

After that day, all applications will be considered “new” applications, even wells dug before 2016. That means someone with a so-called ‘historic’ well that could have been grandfathered in, could be behind someone wanting to drill a new well.

Van Der Gulik also says it can take three to five years for a license to be approved, but applications submitted before deadline will be accepted as ‘historic’ and approved.