Carrying capacity

Carrying capacity

Another approach to limiting growth by valuing water involves the concept of “carrying capacity.” The idea is presented in the Summer 2001, issue of the Boston College “Environmental Affairs Law Review.” The article, entitled, “Carrying Capacity and the Comprehensive Plan: Establishing and Defending Limits of Growth,” notes that natural resources, such as vegetation, soil, and water, as well as “built” resources, such a highways, schools, water and sewer systems, etc., have finite capacities for assimilating growth and its associated impacts. Exceed these capacities and degrada tion sets in. Tb prevent such degradation, taxes are raised to correct the situation.

For example, degradation in groundwater might call for a reservoir to store water. Such a reservoir might cost $15 million and involve decades of debt. Water, once free and undervalued, now costs. The idea has been used elsewhere.

Florida has undertaken a “Florida Keys Carrying Capacity Study” to measure how much land development the Florida Keys can support without additional damage to its natural resources and local infrastructure.

For Rappahannock County, a carrying capacity study might identify the upper thresholds of the county’s various natural and “built” resources. These could then be described in the Rappahannock County Comprehensive Plan. In the case of water, support might then be solicited from downstream users of water to limit growth in Rappahannock County. This approach could also tie in with the regional water supply study of the Rappahannock River Basin, which is assessing the adequacy of water supply for the Rappahannock Basin through the year 2050.

Rappahannock County might examine the concepts and approaches set forth in a 1997 National Research Council (NRC) publication on valuing