THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 27, 1994 TAG: 9407270392
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Running out of drinking water is a nagging municipal nightmare that brought 15 state and community officials together in Hertford on Tuesday to try to head off water shortages like the one afflicting Virginia Beach.
For 10-years the Virginia resort city has been trying to get authorization to pump water from Lake Gaston, which straddles the North Carolina-Virginia border, to the seacoast where limited water supplies threaten future economic growth.
The latest delay came when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month ordered an environmental impact study of the $142-million Lake Gaston pipeline plan.
``Before we run out, too, we've got to be more concerned about our own available North Carolina water supply,'' said William C. ``Bill'' Owens, a Pasquotank County commissioner who is chairman of the Albemarle Water Resources Task Force.
Owens and Hal Walker Jr., director of the Albemarle Commission, called the Hertford meeting to consider possible use of at least 40 million gallons of fresh water now being pumped daily as waste into the Pamlico River in a Texasgulf phosphate mining operation.
The Water Resources Task Force has already received a total of $35,000 in grants from Walker's Albemarle Commission and from the N.E. North Carolina Economic Development Commission to study using the Texasgulf discharge water to meet the future needs of northeastern communities.
``And I wouldn't rule out eventually sending some of the water along to Virginia Beach,'' said Walker.
No estimate has as yet been made of the cost of building a pipeline from Texasgulf, in Aurora on the Pamlico River in Beaufort County.
``One guess I've heard is $200 million,'' said Owens. Not counting branches to various counties and cities, the main Texasgulf aqueduct would be longer than the proposed 85-mile pipeline from Lake Gaston to Virginia beach. In a preliminary letter last May to a Raleigh engineering firm, Mark Biberdorf, an Albemarle Commission government affairs specialist, outlined some of the points that the commission wanted studied if a survey is ordered.
Route selection for the Texasgulf pipeline from Aurora to northeastern North Carolina would be a primary purpose, Biberdorf said.
The pipeline path would have to follow ``the least restrictive route including spurlines off the main route to parties in the northern Albemarle Region and also across the state line to Virginia,'' Biberdorf wrote.
Task force members, including several county managers and city officials, agreed to immediately begin a survey to determine which communities would be likely to sign up for additional water from Texasgulf.
``We'll have another meeting with Texasgulf officials in Beaufort County during the second week of September,'' said Chairman Owens, ``and by then well have better information.'' Owens said he hoped that there would be enough information to discuss financing for the Texasgulf pipeline and rates for users along the way.
How much might be paid to Texasgulf for the water will be discussed in September when it is known how much of the phosphate overflow will be wanted by northeastern communities.
``Obviously, if a community is now getting it's own water cheaper than it could buy it from a pipeline, it won't sign up,'' said Owens. Northeastern counties and cities at present get drinking water from deep wells or, in some cases, adjacent rivers.
Owens emphasized that the water is already being pumped out of the ground by Texasgulf under long-term environmental permits.
``It isn't as though we would have to get permission to pump it,'' Owens said, ``It's already available above ground.''
Every day Texasgulf pumps at least 40 million gallons of water from 600-foot wells to cause surface ground water to drop enough for phosphate to be mined.
``It's good water but it's hard-water that we now pump into the Pamlico River,'' said Michael Gwynn, a Texasgulf spokesman who attended the Hertford meeting. Some environmentalists say the huge amount of fresh water has affected the fish habitat in the occasionally brackish Pamlico.
``We're tickled to death that the water is available, because all we want to do is keep our neighbors happy,'' Gwynn said.
Gwynn said he thought the Castle-Hayne aquifer that supplies the deep level water now being pumped away as waste will continue to be resupplied in spite of the heavy drain. ``It's a very big aquifer,'' he said.
Officials attending the meeting included state Rep. Vernon G. James, D-Pasquotank; Bill Richardson, Currituck County manager; Randy Keaton, Pasquotank County manager; James Lancaster, director of the N.E. Regional Economic Commission; and Nat Wilson, a hydro-geologist with the N.C. Division of Water Resources.
Some months ago, Richardson began seeking new water sources for the growing Currituck Outer Banks community of Corolla.
Richardson was one of the first planners to give serious attention to the Texasgulf water potential. Dare County has also expressed concern over future water needs, but sent no representative to the Hertford meeting. by CNB