
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 25, 1992                   TAG: 9203250285
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Short

BIDS ON LAKE GASTON LINE TO BE OPENED

Bids for the first significant construction work toward building a long-awaited water pipeline from Lake Gaston to Hampton Roads will be opened this week, city officials said Tuesday.

But a deputy North Carolina attorney general who has fought the project on several fronts said the 84-mile pipeline never will be finished and that the city is wasting tax money.

The initial project to construct six river and stream crossings along the pipeline route is expected to cost about $4 million, said Tom Leahy III, the city's water resources engineer in the Department of Public Utilities.

That work and another $4 million project to build a pumping station at Pea Hill Creek in Brunswick County is expected to start later this year. The pumping station would funnel up to 60 million gallons of water a day from the lake along the Virginia-North Carolina border.

City Utilities Director Clarence Warnstaff predicted the project will be completed and operating in 1996. But Alan Hirsch of the North Carolina attorney general's office, said the earliest completion date would be 1998. - Associated Press

by CNB