THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 14, 1994 TAG: 9407140647
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
When legislators and other state officials sit down in Norfolk next week to test the waters of controversy over the Lake Gaston pipeline, North Carolina's Democratic Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., will keep a watchful but absentee eye on the proceedings.
So will Virginia's Republican Gov. George F. Allen.
More than 10 years ago, when a North Carolina governor and a Virginia governor got together to settle a regional dispute, the meeting broke up in recriminations that many think are still reflected in the Lake Gaston squabble.
But planners of the Norfolk pipeline talks now believe Monday's preliminary session will soon bring about a much more fruitful meeting between the present Virginia and North Carolina governors.
``Gov. Hunt will not attend the Lake Gaston conference next week. But he'll be closely monitoring the proceedings,'' Rachel Perry, Hunt's communication director, said Wednesday.
``The governor is concerned about policy, not politics, in this dispute,'' Perry said.
In Richmond today, Allen will confer with state Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, about the forthcoming talks now tentatively scheduled to begin in Norfolk's Downtown Marriott Hotel.
``Gov. Allen has expressed great interest in the results of this first meeting, and we're hoping it will soon lead to a full-dress later meeting between the two governors,'' Stolle said Wednesday.
``Both governors will be going to a governors' conference in Boston later next week - they could meet there,'' Stolle added.
Largely through the efforts of Stolle in Virginia and state Sen. Marc Basnight, a Dare County Democrat in North Carolina, the opening Lake Gaston discussions will be between representatives of both governors and will be held jointly with a convention of the Southern Legislative Conference at the Marriott Hotel.
``The first meeting is set for sometime Monday, but we may have to change things to suit Sen. Basnight's schedule in North Carolina,'' Stolle said. Basnight is president pro tem of the North Carolina Senate and is now battling with the state House over the 1995 budget.
``He'll be there for the Monday meeting, barring something unexpected in the budget talks,'' said Bret Kinsella, Basnight's principal Senate spokesman.
Basnight initiated the Lake Gaston conciliation last April when he responded to northeastern North Carolina sentiment that the long battle with Virginia over the pipeline proposal was not only creating bad neighbors but was also hurting business between the two states.
Basnight has for years advocated long-range planning to cope with future regional water shortages in Hampton Roads and in northeastern North Carolina.
Hunt and other Tar Heel officials have long opposed the $142 million pipeline that Virginia Beach wants to build to pump 60 million gallons of water daily out of Lake Gaston on the North Carolina border to the resort city on the commonwealth's coast.
With numerous legal roadblocks, North Carolina lawyers have delayed the pipeline in the courts, charging removal of 60 million gallons of water each day would have serious environmental effects on the Roanoke River.
The Roanoke flows out of Virginia's western mountains, fills Lake Gaston, and then pours into North Carolina and down to Albemarle Sound. Virginia attorneys say the effects of the water withdrawal would be slight, and that the pipeline is the only viable solution to an increasing coastal water shortage.
The last time Hunt was involved in a ``neighborly'' effort to settle a dispute with Virginia was more than 10 years ago when he ended up in an angry confrontation with then-Gov. Charles Robb, now a U.S. Senator from Virgina.
That was during Hunt's second term as Tar Heel governor. He and Basnight, then a member of the North Carolina Transportation Board, met with Robb under a roadside tent on U.S. 17 near the Virginia border to put pressure on Robb to widen U.S. 17 in Virginia to meet a stretch of the highway in North Carolina that had recently been widened to four lanes.
It was apparent from the outset of the meeting that both Robb and Hunt, nationally prominent as young and neighboring Democratic governors, shared conflicting ego problems, observers said. The meeting of the two turned out to be both a standoff and a fiasco.
Friends of Robb said he felt that Hunt was trying to tell Virginia when and where to build roads.
Whatever happened, the meeting broke up in discord. The two governors flew home in their helicopter-sized huffs. And U.S. 17 is still two-laned from the Virginia line to Portsmouth and Norfolk.
Stolle said earlier this week that Allen will send a representative of the Virginia Department of Transportation to Monday's Lake Gaston meeting - a gesture that will not be lost on Basnight.
``But I don't want anyone to think that widening U.S. 17 in Virginia is a quid pro quo for settling the Lake Gaston thing with North Carolina,'' Basnight said. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
James B. Hunt
In third term as governor
George F. Allen
Expressed great interest in talks
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE WATER SUPPLY PLAN SUMMIT
by CNB