THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504240046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ESTES THOMPSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
DATELINE: LITTLETON LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Lake Gaston and the business it brings mean everything to this tiny Halifax County town.
``It would probably be dead if it weren't for the lake. The lake has saved Littleton,'' said insurance agent Marvin Newsom, 84, who grew up in this town a few miles south of the lake and worked behind the scenes to bring the lake to reality.
Local residents naturally took personal affront when a federal mediator said it would be a good idea to let Virginia Beach suck 60 million gallons of water a day from Lake Gaston.
``We are opposed to it,'' said Littleton Mayor Mason Hawfield, who runs a wholesale business that distributes cigarettes, candy and the like to stores around the lake. ``The lake means all the world to Littleton.''
The town has a population of 691 and an operating budget of about $750,000. In the '30s, it was a bustling railroad town of 1,000 with a women's college and a market for farmers' products.
Then the railroad stopped running. The college closed and the downtown got shabby from lack of business. Things perked up after Virginia Electric & Power Co. began the lake in 1960.
As the lake grew, and houses sprouted in subdivisions around its shore in North Carolina and Virginia, Littleton benefited. Church rolls were bolstered by lake residents, or ``lake people'' as they're called by folks who remember when there was only the Roanoke River. Boat dealers and marinas set up shop around the lake. Restaurants, grocery stores, building supply stores and real estate agents thrived.
The pipeline looms as a threat to all the good that the lake created - not just in Littleton but also in other communities near the lake and along the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, which merge in Virginia and feed Lake Gaston. Downstream, the Roanoke River flows through North Carolina to Albemarle Sound and Oregon Inlet.
Newspaper headlines on April 7 and the days after reflect the varied reactions to the settlement.
``Gaston Breakthrough'' said a huge headline in The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star when the settlement agreement was announced.
Headlines in the weekly newspaper here were equally prominent. More than a week after the settlement was proposed, The Lake Gaston Gazette's front page still was dominated by pipeline news.
``Major League Flim Flam?'' said one headline. ``Opponents Urge You to Act NOW by Fax, Phone or Telegram,'' instructed another.
North Carolina, along with the Roanoke River Basin Association, has opposed the pipeline idea at every step since it was first proposed 15 years ago. But the settlement has the tentative backing of Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. and Sen. Jesse Helms.
The agreement still must be approved by legislatures in each state.
Since the settlement announcement, opponents have looked for help. Members of the basin association have begun plotting new strategies to hobble the 76-mile pipeline. At least one new lawsuit has been threatened.
Members of the Roanoke River Basin Association met last week with Hunt and North Carolina Attorney General Mike Easley. Association president Ewell Barr said the situation was volatile.
``It's changing hour to hour,'' Barr said. ``That's no exaggeration.''
Even in Virginia, the settlement gets mixed reviews. Virginia state Sen. Charles Hawkins said proposed safeguards in the agreement limiting water use, especially during drought, aren't enough to protect communities above and below Lake Gaston.
There is also concern about the pipeline's impact on Kerr Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control lake upstream from Gaston that also straddles the states' border.
Virginia Beach, which purchased water rights in Kerr from the Corps years ago, plans to use water from Kerr to assure that the level of the Roanoke River - which flows through both lakes - won't decline during the striped bass spawning season.
Because of Kerr's function as a flood control lake, levels have always fluctuated. But the prospect of more manipulations because of the pipeline raises concern about a more drastic fluctuation in Kerr's level - and worries that property values will decline.
Hawkins is also concerned that once Virginia Beach taps a watershed outside its own area, the door will open to others.
``The safeguards don't matter,'' Hawkins said. ``No judge is going to allow that water to be cut off if health and welfare are in jeopardy.
``The safeguards are just like passing a law that says everyone should drive 55 mph. It looks good, but when was the last time you saw anyone driving the speed limit?''
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE NORTH CAROLINA by CNB