THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220365
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 122 lines
On the eve of a crucial Lake Gaston decision by the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors, the city of Norfolk has helped Virginia Beach smooth out some opposition to the proposed pipeline.
Virginia Beach will ask the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors tonight for a zoning permit needed to run 9 miles of the pipeline through the county and into the Ennis Pond Channel, which ultimately feeds into a Norfolk reservoir in Suffolk.
Isle of Wight resident Michael L. Blythe, one of two residents who helped convince the county Planning Commission to recommend against issuing a permit for the 76-mile pipeline in November, said Wednesday that he is withdrawing his opposition because Norfolk has agreed to purchase his house.
``I'm not involved anymore. They're buying me out,'' Blythe said, shortly before meeting a Norfolk official at his house Wednesday afternoon.
Blythe and next-door-neighbor Harry Young, who declined to comment Wednesday, are selling their homes to Norfolk for a total of about $275,000 - within 10 percent of the land's appraised value, according to Virginia Beach officials.
When Virginia Beach modified its pipeline plan to end at the Ennis Pond Channel, officials said the change would save $32 million in construction costs. But Blythe and Young worried that the extra millions of gallons of water flowing through that channel daily would flood their back yards.
Hampton Roads communities hope to take up to 60 million gallo
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ns of water a
day from Lake Gaston, the bulk of which would go to Virginia Beach. Chesapeake
would receive up to 10 million gallons per day and Franklin and ``I am not against Virginia Beach getting the water, I just didn't want to
pay the price for it myself,'' Blythe said after his meeting. ``I think
they're really trying to work with us and take care of us. I don't have any
complaints now.''
Blythe, who works for the Isle of Wight Farm Bureau, said he would relocate
within the county by June, when Norfolk will take ownership of his house.
Norfolk Director of Public Utilities, Louis Guy, said his city has been
trying to buy 20-some easements along the Ennis Pond Channel for more than 5
years, to avoid drainage problems. Culverts in the channel, which runs under
Virginia Routes 636, 600 and 603 and U.S. Route 460, tend to back up in heavy
rains, Guy said. Virginia Beach has agreed to pay $500,000 to deepen those
culverts.
Norfolk has used the channel since World War II to route water from the
Blackwater and Nottoway rivers into the city's reservoir in Suffolk's Lake
Smith.
The city had tried to buy just the easements on Blythe and Young's property
for some time, Guy said, but the two men had refused to sell. Guy said Norfolk
plans to resell the houses at fair market value and retain the easements.
He would not say whether the deal with Blythe and Young was speeded up to
help Virginia Beach with the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors.
``We were negotiating with those people before the Virginia Beach
request,'' Guy said. ``I don't want to say why anything happened in any
particular time. Clearly it is in the best interest of everyone to get this
resolved.''
Virginia Beach's original plans for the pipeline, approved by the Isle of
Wight Board of Supervisors in 1987, had called for the pipeline to continue 2
miles further northwest and empty directly into Lake Smith. By making the
routing change in 1992, Virginia Beach officials estimated they would shave
$32 million off the project's $176 million price tag.
Virginia Beach had not formally asked for permission to make the change
before, because the conditional use permit needed to build the project would
have expired before the pipeline was built, said Thomas M. Leahy III, Virginia
Beach's Lake Gaston pipeline project manager.
The Beach expects to begin laying pipe early next month, despite continuing
opposition from North Carolina, and residents along Lake Gaston and the
Roanoke River which flows into it.
Last fall, North Carolina appealed a decision by the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission to issue Virginia Beach the last federal permit it
needed for the pipeline. That appeal has not yet been scheduled by the U.S.
Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
North Carolina's two U.S. senators - Jesse Helms and D.M. ``Lauch''
Faircloth - have also promised to try to pass legislation that would force
Virginia to agree to a settlement reached last summer before Hampton Roads
could draw any water from Lake Gaston, which straddles the border between the
two states.
North Carolina also plans to challenge the pipeline when the license for
Virginia Power's hydroelectric plant, on Lake Gaston, expires at the turn of
the century. On Wednesday, North Carolina, Virginia Power and Virginia Beach
officials attended an early meeting on that relicensing process. The lake was
created to generate electricity, which gives federal energy regulators control
over the lake.
Virginia state legislators from the Roanoke basin have also promised to try
to pass legislation that would block the pipeline or at least slow its
progress. The legislature is in session through March.
Brunswick County, which gave Virginia Beach permission in 1987 to run the
pipeline across its county limits, is also raising concerns about the pipeline
now. Leahy believes Virginia Beach does not need a zoning permit in Brunswick
County because the county did not have a zoning ordinance in 1987. The
county's zoning officer is challenging that opinion, and the Board of Zoning
Appeals will hear from both sides on Feb. 28.
Isle of Wight Board Chairman Phillip Bradshaw said earlier this week that
he would wait to hear from county residents at tonight's public hearing, which
begins at 7 p.m., before deciding how to vote.
``I think anything we do will hinge on the concerns of the citizens,''
Bradshaw said.
Pipeline opponents living along the Lake Gaston shoreline have campaigned
against the project within the county, so Virginia Beach expects some
additional opposition tonight, Leahy said.
Virginia Beach Director of Public Utilities Clarence O. Warnstaff said the
city has tried to address the issues that were brought up before the Planning
Commission.
``We think we have been responsive to the concerns that have been raised,''
Warnstaff said. ``We've worked in a constructive manner to come up with
solutions, consistent with our actions over the last 15 years.''
Warnstaff said he has not decided what to do if Isle of Wight rejects the
permit request.
``We will have to regroup and determine what's the best strategy,'' he
said. ``This isn't the first problem along the (pipeline's) 15-year history
and I don't think it's going to be the last.''
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE PERMIT
by CNB