THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 22, 1995 TAG: 9512210169
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
North Carolina's two U.S. senators stepped up their battle against the proposed Lake Gaston pipeline this week.
Sens. D.M. ``Lauch'' Faircloth and Jesse Helms, both Republicans, submitted and then withdrew an amendment to the Striped Bass Act of 1995 that would force Virginia to accept a settlement negotiated last summer. They withdrew the amendment, they said, to give Virginia Gov. George Allen another chance to revive the settlement, which was derailed in a partisan political battle last summer and never came to a vote in the state legislature.
But if Allen does not approve the settlement soon, the senators warned, they will resubmit their amendment, and keep submitting it attached to other bills, until it is approved.
``If we start holding up environmental legislation important to other senators and important to the environment, it raises the stakes,'' Faircloth legislative assistant George A. Howard said Tuesday.
``It's foolish for the city of Virginia Beach to be betting $150 million against the chance that this might be stopped in the Senate,'' he said, ``especially when the alternative is an agreement that's been approved by everyone.''
Virginia Beach officials said Tuesday that they have no intention of going back to this summer's compromise.
The settlement was ironed out before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission awarded Virginia Beach the final permit it needed to build the pipeline. The city has since entered into seven construction contracts and expects to break ground on the project in the next few months.
Virginia Beach also agreed to comply with most of the settlement's requirements. The city has not volunteered to pay communities in north-central North Carolina, near Lake Gaston, as the settlement would have required.
Virginia Beach hopes to get up to 48 million gallons of water a day from the 76-mile pipeline, which would run from Lake Gaston, along the North Carolina border, to reservoirs in Isle of Wight County. Chesapeake also would be able to draw up to 10 million gallons of water per day; and Isle of Wight and the city of Franklin would be entitled to as much as 1 million gallons of water per day each.
Ken Stroupe, Allen's press secretary, said Tuesday that the governor did his best to promote a settlement this summer. Now, both sides will just have to put their trust in the courts, Stroupe said.
``We're sort of puzzled by why Washington would want to become involved in this issue,'' Stroupe said. ``Our position is that it's before the courts, and at this point, that is the vehicle through which the resolution will occur.''
Sen. John A. Warner, who sits on the same environmental committee as Faircloth, said Tuesday that he would be happy to consider the compromise if Gov. Allen supported it.
In a prepared statement, Warner said the Faircloth-Helms amendment was unrelated to the Striped Bass Act and therefore should not be included as part of that bill.
``This amendment,'' Warner said, ``is merely a transparent attempt to accomplish what North Carolina has failed to do through the regulatory process and in the courts - kill the Lake Gaston project.''
Virginia Beach has been trying to build the pipeline for nearly 13 years, against the staunch opposition of North Carolina and Virginia communities along the Roanoke River, which flows into Lake Gaston. Several legal cases are still pending, although opponents have been successful only at delaying the project.
Pipeline opponents have said the project would hurt the environment, including striped bass, and would deprive river communities on both sides of the state line of much-needed development.
Virginia Beach, which buys all its water from Norfolk because it has no source of its own, has argued that the pipeline is the least environmentally damaging alternative and would have a minimal effect on the communities along the Roanoke River.
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE by CNB