Water-related Legislation in the 2002 Virginia General Assembly

In 2002, the Virginia General Assembly convened on January 9 and adjourned on March 9, with a reconvened (“veto”) session on April 17. The legislature considered 2907 bills; 1587 were passed, 804 failed, and 517 were carried over to the 2003 session. Starting below, we list 64 distinct measures related to water resources (with references to additional measures that were identical or very similar). We compiled the list using information available on the General Assembly’s Legislative Information Service (LIS) Web-site, at http://leg1.state.va.us/021/lis.htm. The bill summaries below are taken directly from LIS, with editing for space and occasionally for clarity or emphasis. Please note that the bill numbers in this file are NOT hyperlinked. To access more information about any bill, please visit the LIS Web site. LIS categorizes bills and resolutions, and this year we searched for water-related legislation under the following nine categories: 1) Conservation; 2) Drainage, Soil Conservation, Sanitation, and Public Facilities Districts; 3) Fisheries and Habitat of Tidal Waters; 4) Game, Inland Fisheries and Boating; 5) Health; 6) Mines and Mining; 7) Waste Disposal; 8) Waters of the State, Ports, and Harbors; and 9) Water and Sewer Systems. In the following we list first the water-related measures that passed, grouped according to the categories listed in the previous paragraph; next, the measures that failed, group in the same manner; and finally the measures that were carried over to 2003, again grouped the same way. The consecutive numbers to the left of each measure are for cross-referencing within this article and have no legislative significance. The actual bill or resolution numbers use the following abbreviations: HB = bill started in House of Delegates; HJ = joint resolution started in the House; SB = bill started in the Senate; and SJ = joint resolution started in the Senate.