Editor, Gazette-Journal:

As a longtime resident of the Middle Peninsula and a regional planner in Eastern Virginia, I understand the challenges we face regarding water quality, and indeed water quantity. Though the Chesapeake Bay Act forces oversight of and improvements to our water quality, water supply and quantity lie strictly within the purview of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. That agency’s groundwater withdrawal permitting process is deeply flawed and is indeed manipulated by political forces in our state legislature.

The rapid depletion of groundwater in Eastern Virginia has become of such concern that DEQ recently assembled the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Advisory Committee and conducted a comprehensive study which was released this year. The study found that groundwater depletion of the Potomac Aquifer was occurring at such a rapid pace that land subsidence and saltwater intrusion are further diminishing the viability of our primary water source and...