Definitions For Great Lakes Water Withdrawal Registration
For purposes of implementing the Great Lakes Water Conservation and Management Act, the following definitions are applicable for registering water withdrawals and losses.
- Facility is one or more pieces of water withdrawal equipment at the same site, including but not limited to any place of business, farm, factory, industrial or commercial site, institution, structure, open land, vessel, or rolling stock, where water is withdrawn for any purpose.
- Agriculture is the practice of farming on a farm for crops, plants, vines and trees; and the keeping, grazing or feeding of livestock for sale as livestock or livestock products.
- Farm is an agricultural business that may be composed of up to 25 non-contiguous parcels of land within a radius of 40 miles that are under the ownership or control of the same person.
- Water withdrawal is a withdrawal of surface or ground water from the Great Lakes Basin of 100,000 gallons per day averaged over 30 consecutive days.
- Water loss means the consumptive use of Great Lakes water, or the diversion of water out of the Great Lakes Basin, or both.
- Consumptive use is a use of water that results in a failure to return any portion of the amount withdrawn to the Great Lakes Basin.
- Interbasin diversion is a transfer of water out of the Great Lakes Basin through any mechanism such as a pipe or canal and including a change in ground water flow caused by pumping.
- Great Lakes Basin is shown in a map along with a list of basin communities in Appendix A of the Great Lakes Water Withdrawal Registration Program Handbook.