6/23/09 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]
Last November, Charlottesville’s City Council passed a resolution calling for a raft of studies related to the community’s 50-year water supply plan. The move came amid continued controversy about the plan that Council and other local bodies adopted in 2006, and followed an announcement that Gannett Fleming, the engineering firm hired to implement the plan, had said that one of its components—a new dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir—would cost double what the firm had originally estimated.
The idea behind Council’s resolution was to both gather information about the water supply plan and to demonstrate to the plan’s opponents (who include the group that calls itself Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, or CSWP) that the city is thoroughly examining its options. Councilor David Brown said in December, after Council held a joint session with the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, that he felt the bodies “have a responsibility to make sure that our residents have confidence in Gannett Fleming and confidence in the process that’s moving forward.”
On June 2, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority released one of these studies: a review of the plans for the new dam by a panel of experts. Among the major findings was an assurance that the dam can be built for “substantially” less than Gannett Fleming’s August estimate of at least $72 million—though the panel did not specify a number, pending further investigations of subsurface conditions for the dam’s foundation. Director Tom Frederick says the RWSA is “encouraged” by the report, adding in an e-mail that “We still believe that the permitted plan is the best plan to achieve a long-term (50 years or greater) water plan.” The RWSA has spent $55,000 on the expert panel thus far; Frederick says the final cost estimate for the dam probably won’t come out until late 2009 or early 2010.
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