Cville Tomorrow News

Firms to compete for dredging study

7/9/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

A committee’s decision Wednesday has left two firms battling over which should be hired to study the feasibility of dredging the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir.

Interviews will likely be held late this month or in early August.

In May, officials agreed to submit a request for proposals for a dredging study. Though many firms submitted proposals, members of the dredging committee agreed that two firms appeared to be most qualified: HDR Engineering Inc. of Omaha and F.X. Browne of Lansdale, Pa.

City, county giving rain barrel rebates

6/3/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Charlottesville and Albemarle are giving a $30 rebate for those who purchase new rain barrels, which hold water and are seen as an environmental conservation measure to reduce consumption and runoff.

Generally sized between 50 and 60 gallons, a rain barrel is a container connected to a downspout on a home, office or garage. Its purpose is to capture some of the precipitation that lands on the roof and store it for future use.

Up to two rebates can be used per address, and participants can purchase barrels from any vendor as long as a receipt is shown.

Water costs raise concern

7/1/09 * Daily Progress editorial [full story]

Opponents of the Ragged Mountain dam expansion have said for months that the dam was too expensive.

Now members of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority agree. They have fired the engineering firm that last year hit the agency with a cost estimate more than double its original projection.

But officials and opponents still don’t agree on the future of water supply for the Charlottesville-Albemarle area.

Underground petroleum tanks mar Albemarle drinking water

6/30/09 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

People who are buying houses have plenty to think about. There’s the matter of how much to offer and what type of mortgage to take out. There’s the need to get a home inspection and consider whether any problems —leaky roof, sagging porch—are worth asking the sellers to fix before closing. You have to arrange to move from wherever you’re living; you have to get termite, water and septic tests; you have to deal with title companies and insurance companies and interest rates and points. And all this comes after the decisions about who your agent will be and, of course, which property you want to buy.

Almost no one thinks about whether there might be gasoline in the well.

Next time David and Holli Traud buy a house, though, you can bet they’ll be thinking about it. “If I had to buy a home anywhere ever again, that would be written into the contract—a full test of all the water,” David says. As C-VILLE reported on May 19, the Trauds moved into their Keswick house in May 2008—a house that was a year old at the time and had never been occupied—only to discover that their well water had a funny taste and smell. At first, they thought the water was just stale, but after giving it a week or two, they realized it was getting worse instead of better.

RWSA cans Gannett Fleming on Ragged Mountain Dam

6/30/09 * C-Ville Weekly [full story]

Stating on June 25 that the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority has “significant respect for Gannett Fleming,” the firm that proposed a new  design at Ragged Mountain Dam, RWSA Chair Mike Gaffney announced that the RWSA nonetheless has “decided that a new direction on design best serves the current discussions in this community.”

As previously reported, the RWSA released study findings on June 2. Among those was a review of the plans for the new dam by a panel of experts. Major findings included an assurance that the dam can be built for “substantially” less than Gannett Fleming’s August estimate of at least $72 million.

In the press release, the RWSA says that the development of an RFP by prospective dam design firms, “will begin immediately and move forward as quickly as possible,” with a decision on a new firm expected later this summer.

Was $1,623 meal worth it?

6/28/09 * Daily Progress editorial [full story]

So it “probably would have had been smarter” to have had appropriate expense-account guidelines in advance?

Darn right it would.

The Rivanna Water & Sewer Author-ity has been outed for having spent $1,623.04 on a single dinner with consultants at the Ivy Inn back in March. Another bill for a lunch at Hamilton’s came to $305.14 for five people. An estimated 20 people ate at the Ivy.

Decision to switch firms may cost RWSA

6/28/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

As the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority undergoes a search for a new firm to construct a new dam at Ragged Mountain, it’s unclear exactly how switching firms will affect the area’s long-term water supply plan or how much money given to Gannett Fleming might have been wasted.

“We spent a lot of money with them,” said Charlottesville City Council member Julian Taliaferro. “It hasn’t been cheap.”

Two years ago, the RWSA agreed to pay Gannett Fleming more than $3 million to design the new dam at Ragged Mountain. But Thursday the RWSA announced it would be seeking proposals from different firms.

RWSA fires builder. Firm hiked cost estimate of dam

6/26/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

The firm hired to design, engineer and construct a new dam at Ragged Mountain has been fired, the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority announced Thursday.

Nearly a year ago, Gannett Fleming upped a cost estimate by tens of millions of dollars to build a higher dam at Ragged Mountain — a vital component of the area’s long-term water supply plan. Gannett Fleming far more than doubled an earlier $37 million estimate for the dam, blaming the hike on its discovery of fractured bedrock where the new dam is to be built, but RWSA officials questioned the massive spike.

The RWSA’s executive director, Thomas L. Frederick Jr., said Thursday that the authority would immediately begin searching for a new firm to advance the design of the proposed dam and come up with a new cost estimate. He expects a firm to be hired later this summer.

RWSA officials’ meal tab: $1,623

6/25/09 * Daily Progress [full story]

Even as the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority sought to raise wholesale water rates, officials took their water-supply consultants out for a $1,623.04 dinner.

The March tab drew a red flag from RWSA’s finance director, who suspected the high cost was partially from alcohol being funded by public dollars.

The bill included the cost of meals, alcohol and a $247 tip. RWSA officials say the outing was held to get information from experts reviewing the cost and design of building a new dam at Ragged Mountain, a vital component of the area’s long-term water supply plan.

Dam study lacks cost estimate; dredging study next

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.