Fresh off the worst recorded drought in state history, lawmakers get a look today at a package of proposals to strengthen North Carolina's water-use rules.

Gov. Mike Easley's office and the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources

have drafted a bill that would set minimum state water conservation requirements during droughts.

Under the proposed legislation, if municipal water supplies drop below a certain level, these minimum standards would kick in, intensifying as drinking water reserves continued to dwindle. Cities could do more to save water in dry times, but not less.

And the law would give more consumers a common set of water rules instead of the current hodgepodge of limits that vary from town to town. The ultimate goal: a shared language of water conservation, with categories of restrictions that mean the same in Asheville or Goldsboro as they do in the Triangle.

The proposal also would require farmers to register their water use if it exceeds 100,000 gallons a day, down from a current reporting threshold of 1 million gallons a day for agricultural uses.

Farm groups oppose it. (N&O)