• The Evolution of Federal GWS Governance

Per the 1867 Canadian Constitution, the Canadian federal government has had a historically limited role controlling groundwater use, restricted to aquifers within international borders and those underlying railways, federal, and First Nations lands. It has been most involved in geological mapping and tracking GWS levels, founding the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in 1947 and expanding its groundwater research commitments in the 1987 Federal Water Policy [67]. The US federal government has also long facilitated similar hydrogeological research, founding the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1879. However, it has had a more central GWS governance role, with the Commerce Clause of the 1787 United States Constitution and the 1986 Water Resources Development Act (1986 WRDA) prohibiting diversions of all US waters without Congressional consent. A 2000 amendment to the 1986 WRDA banned all diversions of GLB water unless approved by Great Lakes governors, thus conferring the GLB states' GWS governance role [68]. As such, most GWS governance roles rest with the eight (8) GLB states and Ontario.

Despite the federal governments' long-standing facilitation of hydrogeological research, there is little evidence to suggest that sustainable aquifer yield considerations have been taken into account in successive court rulings or state/provincial laws and decisionmaking standards impacting GWS. Remaining mostly unchanged from its original 19th century legal doctrines that were based on 19th century scientific understanding of groundwater flow systems, the evolution of state/provincial GWS governance is evaluated below.
