Opinion ID: 2569316
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Permit Requirements

Text: ¶ 10 The policy underlying the groundwater statutes is to utilize the groundwater resources of the state and for that purpose to provide reasonable regulations for the allocation for reasonable use based on hydrologic surveys of fresh groundwater basins or subbasins to determine a restriction on the production based upon the acres overlying the groundwater basin or subbasin. Okla. Stat. tit. 82, § 1020.2 (1991). The Water Board determines the maximum annual yield of groundwater to be produced from each groundwater basin based on a hydrologic survey. Id. at § 1020.5 (Supp.1993). The yield for the groundwater basin involved in this matter has been set at one acre foot [1] of water per acre of surface land overlying the basin. Any person intending to use groundwater must make application to the Water Board before taking it from a completed well or drilling a new well. Id. at § 1020.7. The Water Board must determine four issues in deciding whether to grant a groundwater permit: (a) Whether the applicant owns or leases or has some other sufficient interest in the surface of the land dedicated to the application; (b) Whether such land overlies a fresh groundwater basin or subbasin; (c) Whether the use to which the applicant intends to put the water is a beneficial use; and (d) That waste by depletion or waste by pollution will not occur. Okla. Admin. Code § 785:30-3-5; Okla. Stat. tit. 82, § 1020.9(A) (Supp.1993). The first three of these issues were not contested. The third and fourth issues measure the reasonable use of fresh groundwater. If the Water Board finds for the applicant on all four issues, it must issue a permit. Okla. Stat. tit. 82, § 1020.9(A).