Council hears from public on water supply plan
There were roughly two camps among the thirty-four people who spoke at the meeting, and both sides traded applause throughout the evening. One group consisted of the opponents of the plan, who think dredging should be done first before a new dam is built at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir. The second group was made up of business leaders, citizens and environmentalists who say the existing plan is the best way to proceed.
OPPONENTS MAKE THEIR CASE
Former Mayor Francis Fife, a past member of the RWSA Board, said he was astounded the organization did not consider dredging more carefully. Susan Smith, representing the Ednam Forest Association, urged Council to delay implementation of the plan if dredging could prevent the expansion of the Ragged Mountain Reservoir.
Tom Olivier, Conservation Chair for the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club, said his group still supports the adopted water supply plan, but added they now want dredging to be reconsidered as a key component. Colette Hall of the North Downtown Neighborhood Association said she should not have to pay higher rates to support future generations. City Resident Downing Smith said the City should dredge now, and wait at least another 10 years before adding on to the dam.
Former City Councilor Kevin Lynch largely repeated the information he presented at the May 6, 2008 work session on the water supply plan, and criticized the permit for using faulty population data. Lynch also handed Councilors and reporters a written version of his plan. Rich Collins, a fellow member of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, said the group will be traveling to Richmond on Friday to ask the Department of Environmental Quality to reconsider the permit it issued in February.
Sam Freilich, whose property adjoins the Ragged Mountain Natural Area, doubted that the proposed $56 million pipeline from the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir would be technically feasible, given that it would have to travel 9 and a half miles uphill. Keith Rosenfeld doubted the RWSA would be able to obtain the right of way for the pipeline.
Engineer Martin Chapman, whose company Indoor Biotechnologies tests water quality, said Council did not have enough information about dredging alternatives. James King said the RWSA should pay for a bathymetric study of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.
Betty Mooney, who helped organize the Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan group, said the current Council would be remembered for killing trees if they allow the plan to be implemented. She also said many people cannot afford the higher water rates that will result. Her husband, Joe Mooney, concluded the public hearing by issuing a six point plan of action for Council, which involves repairing the Ragged Mountain Dam rather than expanding it.
SUPPORTERS URGE AFFIRMATION OF ADOPTED PLAN
Rod Gentry, president of Union Bank and Trust, urged the Council to show leadership and continue to support the plan. Martha Levering, representing the Natural Resources Committee of the League of Women Voters, said the adopted plan is the “least environmentally damaging solution.” City Resident James Nix said spending money on dredging would divert money from capital improvements to increase reliable storage.
County Resident Jim Kennan said further delay would increase the construction costs, raising the price tag for the whole plan. That sentiment was echoed by City Resident Bob Hodous and Timothy Hulbert, President of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Robbi Savage, Executive Director of the Rivanna Conservation Society (RCS), acknowledged that “planning ahead can be tough” but said Council needed to take steps to make sure there is enough clean drinking water for “our children and our children’s children.” Jason Halbert, also with RCS, said Albemarle County and Greene County should do more to control sedimentation in the Rivanna River Basin “before one dime is spent on dredging” the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. David Hirschman, who supports the adopted plan, said the community needed to decide what role it wanted that Reservoir to play before undertaking a dredging program.
RCS Member Leslie Middleton called on Council to follow the legacy of City leaders who in 1908 built a second dam at Ragged Mountain, when it was clear that the first one built in 1885 was not enough to meet the needs of the community.
“This second dam has helped meet our needs for a 100 years, and we have benefitted from this investment since then,” Middleton said. “It is now our turn to invest in a plan that provides for at least the next 50 years, and we certainly hope more. We should bear this cost, and should be willing to bear this cost because it is our turn to bear it.”
COUNCIL COMMENTS
Council took no action after the public hearing, but Mayor Dave Norris asked his Councilors if they had any reactions to the hearing.
Councilor David Brown, who is the only sitting member of Council to vote for the plan’s adoption in 2006, said he did not think there was any doubt that the water supply needed to be expanded, even as the community gets used to conserving water. He pointed to climate forecasts which show the southeastern United States will be dryer in the near future.
“If dredging alone can’t solve the problem, then the economics favor building the dam,” Brown said. “If you have to raise the dam part of the way, it doesn’t cost much more to raise it the rest of the way, and that negates any savings that occur from dredging being cheaper then you thought it was going to be.”
Brown went on to say he was not prepared to make the same assumptions being made by opponents of the adopted plan, who say demand will not be as high as the RWSA projects in 2055 because of increased conservation and lower population growth.
“I’m not prepared to go along with those assumptions,” Brown said. “The risks of not being conservative in your estimating are significant… I think we have to err on the side of being careful.”
Councilor Holly Edwards urged both sides of the debate to refrain from attacking each other, and added that the African American community has not been engaged in the discussion.
“The Rivanna River belongs to all of us, and in the past, African Americans weren’t a part of the decision process, but we’re there now so we need to be present,” Edward said.
Councilor Julian Taliaferro said he wants to make a decision and move forward. “This thing has gone on far too long,” he said.
Mayor Norris acknowledged the City and County have not taken good care of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. He agreed with some speakers who argued the RWSA Board of Directors did not adequately represent citizens, given that four of its members are City or County employees. Norris cautioned against making direct comparisons between different dredging plans.
“I think it’s important when we talk about the competing visions and competing proposals that we compare apples to apples,” Norris said. “We hear occasionally people say ‘Why would you consider a $140 million plan when this company can do it for $20 million. That’s not an accurate comparison, and I think the public needs to know that.”
Norris also reminded Downing Smith that the state Department of Environmental Quality requires a 30-year planning horizon, but encourages a 50 year plan. “It would certainly be much easier if we could just plan for 15 years, because then we could do it by dredging alone,” he said. “But I agree with Dr. Brown that we can’t do it by dredging alone, and I think even Kevin Lynch has not made the argument we can’t do it by dredging alone.”
Norris said the community needed to move forward with an examination of dredging, though not necessarily as part of the water supply plan. He said he would introduce a motion before the RWSA’s June Board Meeting to direct the City’s representatives (Public Works Director Judy Mueller and City Manager Gary O’Connell) to move forward with a feasibility study as well as the creation of a task force on the future of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.
Sean Tubbs
So according to Cvilletomorrow, here are the arguments from speakers supporting the current plan:
1) “Show leadership and continue to support the plan” Wow, that’s a compelling argument. Because we all know that a true leader follows the established plan, no matter how flawed it might be.
2) “The adopted plan is the “least environmentally damaging solution”” Maybe compared to the James River Pipeline, but not to our plan. Rivanna’s scheme clear cuts 180 acres of trees, inundates 14,033 linear feet of streams, lets the SFRR fill with sediment (until it starts dumping the sediment load over the dam and into the river below – a process our river loving friends now call “equilibrium”) and requires a 9 ½ mile trench through which a new river will be buried in a pipe. The electrical requirements of pumping this new underground river 300 feet uphill will require burning 1000 tons of coal annually. Other than the dredging, which requires a fraction of the energy of the pipeline, the only environmental impact of our plan is to restore the health of the South Fork reservoir.
3) “Money on dredging would divert money from capital improvements to increase reliable storage” Increasing the capacity of the South Fork Reservoir is the most reliable storage you can possibly get. What do you think is more reliable? Using chemicals to take the sediment out of the water and then pumping 25 million gallons of water uphill every day? Or gravity?
4) “Further delay would increase the construction costs, raising the price tag for the whole plan” Exactly. Rivanna has delayed on dredging for long enough. They said they were going to do the dredging when they raised our rates by nearly 100 percent. That is what Gannett Fleming was hired to do. If the Rivanna Board had done what they said when they took our money, the dredging would have been done by now and we wouldn’t have had to close the pools last summer. Get on with it already!
5) “Council need[s] to take steps to make sure there is enough clean drinking water for “our children and our children’s children.” No argument there. Our plan does that.
6) “Albemarle County and Greene County should do more to control sedimentation in the Rivanna River Basin “before one dime is spent on dredging” the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.” I’m sorry but that is ridiculous. Its like saying that you should do more to control the rain before spending one dime on painting your house. Sedimentation is not some sort of abnormal condition like a burst pipe that needs to be fixed. It has taken 42 years for the reservoir to partially fill with sediment. We could remove it in a less than a year if we wanted to.
7) “The community need[s] to decide what role it wanted that Reservoir to play before undertaking a dredging program.” Um, I thought the role we decided for Reservoir when we built it was to provide drinking water. When did that change?
8) “It is now our turn to invest in a plan that provides for at least the next 50 years, and we certainly hope more. We should bear this cost, and should be willing to bear this cost because it is our turn to bear it.” Wow! The developers couldnt have said it better. Who cares if we can do it cheaper! Higher water bills are our civic duty now! So what other 50 year costs are we now willing to bear because it is our turn? How about a new bypass? After all, the City built one. Isnt it the County’s turn now? And since we’re so flush with cash, why don’t we just pay for the next 50 years worth of development. Oh, wait. We’re already doing that.
9) “If you have to raise the dam part of the way, it doesn’t cost much more to raise it the rest of the way”. Ahh, but it does. Once you go beyond about 25 additional feet, then the only way to fill it without completely depleting the Moormans is with a 60 million dollar pipeline with huge annual operating costs
10) “The risks of not being conservative in your estimating [of future demand] are significant” First we have an option which can meet the inflated Rivanna demand number if that is what the community wants to do. Second, what is the point of conserving water if Rivanna is going to go out and build more infrastructure than we need anyway. Why should I get a rain barrel if Rivanna is going to charge me for enough water to build my own golf course?
I’m still waiting to hear a compelling argument in favor of the current scheme.
Posted by: Kevin Lynch | May 22, 2008 at 09:32 PM
Here's an argument that I think may be pretty compelling, Kevin: the adopted plan provides for approximately three times as much new storage capacity as the alternative you've presented. From what I've seen, the two plans are pretty darned close in terms of how much usable water they allow us to produce on a daily basis. So I don't see where that difference is worth arguing about too much. But in terms of storage, the best we can hope for from dredging alone is to restore the SFFR to the capacity it had when it was built, which means about 500-600 million gallons more capacity that we have today. The adopted plan creates 1.7 billion gallons of new capacity at Ragged Mountain. When it comes to getting through a drought, it's storage capacity that matters. At current daily demand levels, the RWSA plan provides more than six months worth of new water storage, while your plan provides about 50 days in the best case scenario. So I'm going to need to hear a compelling argument about why we don't need the additional storage, as opposed to additional production, before I could support your alternative. Or to put it another way, spending half as much money for one third as much product doesn't sound like a particularly good deal. I'd only make that choice if I was sure that I wasn't going to need to go back and buy the other two thirds any time soon.
Posted by: Michael Coppola | May 27, 2008 at 11:59 AM