THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 13, 1994 TAG: 9408130251
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
Virginia Beach officials, trying every way they can to avoid a lengthy environmental study of the Lake Gaston pipeline, learned Friday that they struck out with the polite approach.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reconfirmed this week an earlier decision requiring an in-depth environmental study of the project. City officials had asked the commission to reconsider; they learned Friday they'd been turned down.
But the commission promised to complete its work ``on an accelerated schedule.'' The commission's chairwoman, Elizabeth Moler, has estimated that the study will take about a year, though it could take much longer.
All five commissioners cast written votes on the city's request, although they did not have a meeting this month, Moler said.
The city's manager of the pipeline project, Thomas Leahy, said city officials didn't expect success with their request, but felt they had to try. ``We always hoped they'd come to their senses, but they rarely overturn these decisions,'' he said.
North Carolina officials said they were pleased. ``We have fought for an environmental impact study for 10 years,'' North Carolina Attorney General Mike Easley said in a written statement. ``It is exactly what we want.''
The city has already embarked on a more forceful strategy. It has filed a federal lawsuit asking the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to set a deadline for thecommission to reach a final decision. The request is based on a federal law requiring agencies to take action within a reasonable time period.
The commission has a filing deadline for the court case on Monday, so it decided to take action on the city's appeal before then. The case is scheduled to be argued before the judge in late September.
The city is also pursuing a rare legal maneuver to take the case out of the commission's domain. It is asking the State Corporation Commission to allow it to condemn the four acres of shoreline it needs to build the pipes and other facilities to withdraw water. The lake straddles the Virginia-North Carolina border, but the pipes would be built on land in Virginia.
The city argues that if it gets permission to condemn the land and immediately seizes ownership, the commission's approval won't be necessary. Water-rights experts say that it is likely that the commission would fight the Beach's attempt to take the water.
The Beach already has a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw up to 60 million gallons a day from the lake.
The commission's 11-page decision rejecting the Beach's appeal indicated some of the issues that need to be considered in the environmental study. Uncertainty about the impact of the project arises not only from stale data but also from discrepancies in previous studies.
For example, three separate studies designed to estimate future water consumption for the Roanoke River came to different conclusions, based on the assumptions used to make the calculations. The studies were done by North Carolina, the Corps of Engineers and Virginia Beach.
``Additional analysis using updated data is necessary to produce a more accurate projection,'' the decision said.
The commission also said it may consider some of the issues raised by officials and citizens during its hearings on the environmental study. These include the impact of the pipeline project upstream of Lake Gaston and the ``environmental justice'' of allowing Virginia Beach to take water that North Carolinians claim they may need in the future.
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON WATER SUPPLY PLAN LAWSUIT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
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