THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 23, 1995 TAG: 9507220126
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Given the ongoing battle over power, money, politics and, not least, credit, don't anticipate those headlines too soon.
According to George Heilig, Norfolk delegate who shares party and hometown with House Speaker Tom Moss, who named him chair-man of a legislative subcommittee on the Virginia Beach/Carolina agreement, the thing to do is revive what his committee brokered and considered late last month a doable, even done deal. Easy for Heilig to say: This ``enhanced'' agreement ``enhanced'' Norfolk's position.
(1) Its only restriction on Norfolk's water sales was a 15-year moratorium on sales to Newport News. The timing, it seems, might maximize the number of bidders on both sides of Hampton Roads for Norfolk's surplus.
(2) It omitted advocating or promoting a regional water authority, which Norfolk has opposed.
(3) It promised that the Beach would buy water from any neighbor who had some available (read: Norfolk) if that water could be had at no more than the ``avoided cost'' of moving water from Lake Gaston.
(4) It gave Carolina's strong pledge not to challenge Norfolk's withdrawing its ``surplus'' water from a Carolina river.
(5) It promised that the Beach would pay 5(CT) per 1,000 gallons to North Carolina and contemplated an equal amount to Virginia localities, meaning primarily to Southside; but then, amid the last legislative hoo-ha, Northern Virginia eyed a share, too.
That's the point at which Governor Allen, at the Beach's request, quite rightly pulled the plug on an Assembly session.
How is it that the Beach's efforts to get out from over Norfolk's water barrel seem to keep the Beach over Nor-folk's water barrel? That full story is a book sure to win the Prize for Tragicomedy-in-Truth.
But, hopefully, City Council is on to the next chapter, and the next choice: how to ensure that there's something in it for the city that generates 32% more revenues for the state than the state returns to the city, a claim few in this dispute can make.
One possibility: Somehow ensuring that, if revived, the previous agreement won't produce the same political hoo-ha which compelled pulling the plug last month won't compel pulling it again. And a second: That by all parties' commitment to a statutory authority or water policy of some sort, the Beach won't end up back over Norfolk's barrel, not in 60 days, not in 60 years.
You want to hold your breath?
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE by CNB