THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 21, 1995 TAG: 9505210056
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 169 lines
To say that Norfolk and Virginia Beach officials have not gotten along over the past few weeks is an understatement. To say that each has often wanted its neighbor to fall into the Chesapeake Bay may be closer to the truth.
The Lake Gaston settlement, signed by Virginia Beach and North Carolina on April 28, has led to three weeks of backbiting, name-calling, partisan politicking and horse-trading.
Norfolk has chided Virginia Beach's lack of consideration in the negotiations. Virginia Beach has been shocked by Norfolk's hard-line stance that threatens to derail the agreement.
The rancor suggests that the cities are upset about more than just water.
At stake instead, perhaps, is the leadership of South Hampton Roads for the next half-century. Norfolk has long had the ``downtown,'' the culture and the financial power. But Virginia Beach now has the people, the growth and the bright future.
Confounding the animosity is a 35-year history of mistrust, broken promises, arrogance and inferiority complexes.
So how did they get into this mess and, more importantly, how do they get out of it?
The seeds of the current bitterness were sown Jan. 1, 1959, when Norfolk decided that its territorial claims to Princess Anne County should follow the waterlines it already had laid there. That annexation led to Sidney S. Kellam's push for a merger between his Princess Anne County and the tiny resort town of Virginia Beach - and the bad blood was etched into the region's identity.
In December 1961, two months after the merger was announced, Norfolk's City Council threatened to cut off Princess Anne County's water service if the merger went through. The council and Mayor W. Fred Duckworth almost immediately retracted the decision, but the bad feelings the 5-1 council vote had created increased Princess Anne County's residents' desire to break from Norfolk, according to ``Merger Politics,'' a 1972 book by David G. Temple.
As one civic leader said at the time: ``I'm sick and tired of being intimidated by the city of Norfolk. They are squirting a water pistol at us. Let's merge.''
Today's unpleasantness goes far beyond annexations and mergers.
In recent days, Norfolk officials have bitterly cited Virginia Beach's attempts to ``steal'' Norfolk's baseball team and ball park; Virginia Beach's efforts to break Norfolk's monopoly on culture by building an amphitheater; Virginia Beach's refusal to build public housing, thereby forcing Norfolk to shoulder the cost of housing low-income residents.
In conversations outside the public limelight, Beach officials have vacillated between anger and confusion.
They don't understand why Norfolk would fight so hard against a Lake Gaston settlement, which they believe would give so much to the region.
Norfolk's City Council has told the Beach it will support the Gaston settlement only if the Beach agrees to pay as much as $495 million over the next 35 years to compensate Norfolk for agreeing not to sell its surplus water to the Peninsula or Eastern Shore, as the settlement requires.
The restriction was a ``deal-making point'' during the negotiations, according to Beach City Council member and water negotiator Louis R. Jones. North Carolina would not agree to a truce unless it had assurances that South Hampton Roads would not make a profit-generating surplus on water taken from the North Carolina border.
Norfolk wants the Beach to continue to pay for the 30 million gallons of water it now buys from Norfolk, even when it will no longer need it. The current price is 60 cents per 1,000 gallons; so Norfolk wants at least that, plus interest, through the year 2030, working out to as much as $495 million.
Norfolk's Fraim said his city will not agree to restrict its water market unless it is fairly compensated.
``If we have three people bidding for the water as opposed to (more) people, then the price of water becomes less valuable,'' Fraim said. ``The citizens of Norfolk will not be part of a strategy that depresses the value of (their) water.''
The Beach is willing to pay something, but officials say they only agreed to the current price because they were in a crisis situation. They should not have to buy the full 30 million gallons if they don't need it, officials said.
In a letter to Norfolk City Manager James B. Oliver Jr., Beach City Manager James K. Spore said his city would be willing to buy 15 million gallons of water a day at 30 cents per 1,000 gallons, and help defray the restrictions on Norfolk's water market by paying 9 cents per 1,000 gallons for any of the remainder Norfolk can't sell.
But is their disagreement really about the price of a gallon of water or the cost of leading South Hampton Roads?
Regionalism is a pretty touchy issue here today. Leaders from the cities espouse the politics of regionalism. But their friendliness often disolves into ugliness without much provocation.
Beach officials said Norfolk's reaction to the Lake Gaston settlement proves that their commitment to regionalism can not be more than skin deep. Norfolk has expressed deep concern about the settlement's mention of a regional water authority for South Hampton Roads.
Fraim said Virginia Beach is only interested in regionalism on its own terms.
``Since I've been on council, whenever Virginia Beach talks about regionalism, the topic is water,'' Fraim said. ``We think regionalism means a lot more than that. It means cooperation in regional transit, economic development, regional jails, you name it.
``It's in our mutual best interests to work together on nearly everything,'' Fraim added. ``Our goal really ought to be to make our boundaries meaningless.''
Norfolk objects to the regional water authority, according to an April 21 memo Oliver wrote to his counterpart in Virginia Beach, because the de facto water authority in place now - with Norfolk at the helm - is working just fine.
``Norfolk will not be a party to an undertaking to establish a regional water authority because Norfolk does not believe that this is necessary or in the best interests of the southeastern region of Virginia,'' he wrote. To say that there is a need for an authority implies that Norfolk is not a good steward of the regional water supply, he added.
Norfolk has more water than all the other cities in South Hampton Roads combined. Its reservoirs in Suffolk and Isle of Wight County provide it with as much as 52 million gallons of water a day, even during times of drought.
By comparison, Portsmouth's system provides up to 32 million gallons a day, Chesapeake's provides about 10 million, and Suffolk's could yield as much as 8 million. Virginia Beach has no water source of its own.
Norfolk's need for water is holding steady at 22 million gallons a day, according to director of utilities Louis I. Guy, leaving the city with 30 million extra gallons a day.
In a shrinking city with a growing poverty level and an aging infrastructure, water has been seen as Norfolk's salvation, the key to keeping its tax rate under control.
Its plenty and Virginia Beach's obvious shortfall has been the center city's primary advantage over its rival. Virginia Beach might have the tourists, the new subdivisions and the top schools, but it could not survive without Norfolk's water.
Norfolk threatened the Beach's water supply once too often in the early 1980s, however, and the younger city decided to seek its independence by acquiring a water source of its own. The Beach's efforts at self-sufficiency have been stymied by North Carolina for more than a dozen years, but the possibility of a Lake Gaston settlement, which would provide Virginia Beach with as much as 48 million gallons a day of untreated water, was a driving force behind the mediation.
Norfolk officials said they support the pipeline because it would serve the region's long-term water needs, but it is not surprising that they would only want such a pipeline on their own terms.
Both sides have said in public that they can overcome their differences, but in private, Virginia Beach officials say they would not bet their futures on it.
Leaders of the two cities said they will continue to meet: ``We are prepared to continue discussions around the clock until we find common ground to make the Lake Gaston pipeline a reality,'' the Norfolk City Council said in a statement released Friday.
No negotiation sessions were planned for the weekend.
Beach officials had hoped to have a deal worked out with Norfolk by Tuesday to meet the 60-day settlement deadline. Thirty-seven days remain before that deadline to get approval from Norfolk and both Virginia and North Carolina state legislatures runs out.
Speaker of the House Thomas W. Moss Jr., D-Norfolk, said Friday he does not think there is any way to make that deadline, and he doesn't intend to try.
All of which sort of puts the ball back in North Carolina's court.
The best chance of a settlement between Norfolk and the Beach seems to be for North Carolina to agree to remove the restriction on Norfolk's water sales. The only way to buy more time for the General Assembly is for North Carolina to agree to extend the deadline.
For the moment, Carolina officials have remained silent, watching what transpires between Norfolk and Virginia Beach, waiting for a call for help from Hampton Roads.
Most parties agree that the Lake Gaston pipeline is too important to this area to allow it to die a political death.
``This is something the region cannot afford not to be successful in,'' Virginia Beach Vice Mayor W.D. Sessoms said. ``This is something the region cannot let not happen. Period.''
KEYWORDS: WATER SUPPLY PLAN LAKE GASTON by CNB