Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 10, 1995 TAG: 9507100115
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PETER BAKER THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Long
Just outside Joan Scholefield's knickknack store, where seashell bracelets go for $6 each, there is water stretching off to the horizon.
Water is what draws thousands of visitors here every year. It is the lifeblood of this resort city, the blanket that provides its economic security.
So, with all this water, why can't Scholefield flush her toilet?
Or water her lawn? Or fill her tea kettle?
Virginia's largest city has been so short of safe drinking water for so long that many activities, from home building to car washing to gardening, are tightly restricted. Restaurants don't serve it unless asked. Swimming pool owners truck it in or wait for rain.
``Everybody understands the water restrictions ... but it gets frustrating,'' said Scholefield, owner of Sko's Jewelry and Gifts. ``It has actually gotten to the point where people save their bathtub water and take it outside to water their plants. You don't flush your toilets all day unless you have to. You don't wash your clothes at night. You leave the water in your tea kettle and just use whatever's there rather than fill it again.''
A bitter irony lost on so many summer frolickers here is that water is both Virginia Beach's greatest asset and its worst enemy.
That's why a proposed accord with North Carolina to pipe in water was so crucial and has occupied the attention of officials ranging from the mayor to the governor. And that's why the collapse of the deal last month in a partisan feud devastated a city that has been pursuing the agreement for 13 years.
``We've had to live with restrictions greater than any other city in Virginia,'' Mayor Meyera Oberndorf said. ``I don't think, unless you are living through it, that you can truly appreciate it.''
Since 1982, after a drought that required the city to ration water, Virginia Beach has been trying to solve its chronic shortage by building a 76-mile pipeline across the southern part of the state to Lake Gaston, a man-made body of water on the Roanoke River straddling the line with North Carolina. And since 1982, North Carolina has stood in the way.
Finally, after all the lawsuits and bureaucratic battles, the two sides hammered out an interstate compact that would allow Virginia Beach to withdraw 60 million gallons a day. The Virginia General Assembly had until June 30 to seal the deal.
But in the end, the legislature never convened, because of a political spat between Republican Gov. George Allen and Democratic lawmakers about when the special session would adjourn and what it would cover.
Left in the middle are 417,000 residents, who face the prospect of stifling restrictions for years to come.
``I just wish the politicians would quit fighting and get something done,'' said Ted Pletcher, who owns Auntie Anne's pretzel shop across Atlantic Avenue from the ocean. ``It's in the paper every day: Deal's done. Deal's off. To the average person, it's just a frustration.''
The city has considered the obvious solution but concluded tapping into the ocean would be prohibitively expensive and environmentally unsound. Desalting seawater, officials estimate, would double Virginia Beach's water and sewer rates - already among the nation's highest at an average of $50 a month.
To get by, the city has been buying millions of gallons a day from neighboring Norfolk and in 1992 imposed tough conservation measures that have cut average usage to among the nation's lowest.
Outdoor use of city water is all but banned, including washing cars and watering lawns. Residents can use three-gallon buckets for those purposes but no hoses or sprinklers. Ornamental fountains are prohibited. Commercial carwashes must use recycled water.
Many residents resort to digging wells in their back yards. Others install water-saving toilets. Those with less money stand outside the bathroom door with a watch while their children shower.
Development, too, is limited. The city has granted no new extensions of public water lines since 1992, allowing hookups only for properties that were entitled at the time of that moratorium.
Businesses considering a move to Virginia Beach often are discouraged because of the water shortage.
``We're on the edge here,'' said John Schwartz, executive director of the local Chamber of Commerce. ``We want to be sure to eliminate that asterisk ... [so] there's no reason to eliminate Virginia Beach as an economic development site because of water.''
But economics are at least partially responsible for the unraveling of the Lake Gaston deal. Although one region benefited, another cried foul.
In Southside and Southwest Virginia, local leaders saw the plan as outright poaching of their resources.
Tapping Lake Gaston for drinking water, they feared, might force new environmental regulations on the region's own use of Roanoke River water. The costs of complying could strangle their economic development.
The opposition of a region where Allen is popular made the issue all the stickier for the governor, who publicly supported the Lake Gaston project. Critics cited the precedent as a danger to every other region of the state, including Northern Virginia.
``They're going to put a straw in our drink up here and take our water,'' said Del. Steve Newman, a Lynchburg Republican who considers himself a loyal Allen supporter but broke with the governor over the issue. ``One day someone may come from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and start putting a straw down in your glass of water and start pulling water out of there.''
Back at the beach, officials are frantically trying to accommodate those and other concerns to resurrect the compact. Allen has vowed to help craft an alternative deal that will not require legislative approval.
But after 13 years of struggling and waiting, after coming so close to a solution only to watch it slip away, there is a sense of profound disappointment that politics in Richmond pulled the plug on the deal.
``Water is not a luxury. Water is a necessity,'' Mayor Oberndorf said. ``If there were ever a time when the elected officials needed to respond as statesmen and not as politicians, this was the time.''
by CNB