Federal Act
on the Protection of Waters
(Waters Protection Act, WPA)

A per­mit is re­quired by any per­son who, over and above nor­mal pub­lic use:

a.

with­draws wa­ter from a wa­ter­course with per­man­ent flow;

b.

with­draws wa­ter from lakes or ground­wa­ter re­sources in such a way as to af­fect sub­stan­tially the dis­charge rate of a wa­ter­course with per­man­ent flow.