Description

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission’s (Commission’s) consumptive water use
regulation, adopted in 1976, required project sponsors to provide mitigation for their water use
during low flow events. The Commission enacted a measure in 1993 to allow project sponsors
to pay a fee to the Commission in lieu of providing actual compensatory water. The payment of
fees was intended to allow the Commission to undertake large-scale storage projects to provide
low flow mitigation for consumptive water use projects paying the fee. The Commission’s
mitigation strategy is based on the elimination of manmade impacts caused by consumptive
water use during low flows and the return to natural flow conditions. The purposes of this
Consumptive Use Mitigation Plan (CUMP) are to present the state of consumptive water use in
the Susquehanna basin, identify the low flow mitigation needs, and introduce the Commission’s
plan for meeting mitigation needs.