Ground water withdrawal permit; priority for human consumptive use, public supplier.

Directs the State Water Control Board (the Board) to instruct the Department of Environmental Quality (the Department) to modify the permitted withdrawal amounts for certain industrial holders of water withdrawal permits within the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area (EVGMA). The bill establishes several steps for modifying the permitted withdrawal amounts: (i) beginning in 2021, the Department shall accept requests for additional withdrawals from existing public water suppliers; (ii) beginning in 2022, the Department shall notify each large industrial permit holder that its permit will be modified; (iii) beginning in 2023, the Department shall reduce the permitted withdrawal amounts of the large industrial withdrawers and increase the permitted withdrawal amounts of public water suppliers as needed; and (iv) by July 1, 2017, the Board shall issue ground water permits for all public water suppliers in the EVGMA as their existing permits expire. The bill also states the findings of the General Assembly that the supply of ground water in the EVGMA is insufficient and that economic growth is hampered as a result, and it reaffirms the policy, found in state law, that preference be given to human consumptive use when proposed uses are in conflict.