Even before some southern lawmakers wanted to inventory the water held captive in worked-out coal mines in their region, the Department of Environmental Protection had been surveying water across West Virginia.

New legislation Gov. Joe Manchin signed this spring not only embraces the abandoned mine water, but also authorizes the DEP to continue registering large quantity users and their certification.

“So we’ll be sending out an information packet that says, ‘Did you vary by more than 10 percent from your average, and if so, you have to give us this new information,’” says Mike Stratton, environmental resource program manager.

If not, there is no need for an updated report.

More importantly, the new bill — advanced by Delegate Mike Burdiss, D-Wyoming, and Sen. Mike Green, D-Raleigh — charged the DEP with developing a statewide water management plan within five years.

“That gave us some authority to electronically log some water wells, and those are the major parts of it,” Stratton explained.

While Green and Burdiss had southern coal installations in mind, the legislation is far more sweeping.

“There’s supposed to be an inventory of water in the entire state,” Stratton said.

An inventory has been accomplished under a previous act and was completed two years ago.

“There was a realization actually before we even finished the inventory that we had to do a survey for three years,” Stratton said.

“Before we even got to the third year, we realized there were changes that were occurring, and that if we just collected that data, in a few short years, it would be out of date.”

Burdiss was a key advocate of the worked-out mines inventory, noting vast supplies of usable water were locked away in former mines.

“Yes, there is,” Stratton agreed. “In fact, some of the public water supplies do tap into those old coal mines. We have not done studies for usability on a lot of that. But certainly the ones that are using it that as a source, it is usable.”

Two years ago, the DEP was concerned solely with registration in its survey of large water users.

“Now we have the whole plan and that’s all new,” the DEP official said.

“It has to be done over the entire state over the next five years. There are obviously going to be some that we’re not going to look at. And a lot of it depends on how we work the plan out. There is going to be a lot of communication with local government entities in doing this. Because it is a statewide plan, we’re not going to look at every little bit of water.”

No approval process is envisioned during the process.

“We’re going to have a plan to meet the water needs for the watersheds,” Stratton said.

“There are 32 major watersheds in the state that we’re going to look at. That will cross county boundaries because it doesn’t make much sense to deal with a county when upstream of that county is another county, and then try to develop separate plans for those two. There needs to be a plan for that entire stream.”

Traditional late-summer droughts have imposed a burden on some southern towns to maintain water supplies, making the idea of using water contained in old coal mines even more attractive.

“We’ll certainly be looking at things in areas to try to help those folks integrate into the plan and meet their future water needs,” Stratton said.

The DEP must turn its plan into the Legislature for consideration in 2013. And even then, it appears the DEP’s work won’t be finished.

“I believe it’s still going to be a living document,” he said.

“It’s going to be something that people need to look at, and as things change, they will need to change their plan. I definitely believe it’s a living document.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com