THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 13, 1996 TAG: 9603130531
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
There were no giant ribbons or gold-tipped shovels to mark the occasion, but construction of the Lake Gaston pipeline resumed in earnest this week as the first pieces of concrete pipe were laid into the ground.
It's been 13 years since Virginia Beach decided to pursue the pipeline, and more than five years since construction was halted on the $150 million project.
Nervous about the construction process and the likelihood of more problems to come, Beach officials downplayed the event. At 9:30 a.m. Monday, in a clearing on the east side of the Nottoway River in Southampton County, the first concrete tube was lowered 10 feet into the ground.
Thomas M. Leahy III, Virginia Beach project manager for the pipeline, admitted the moment was a little ``anticlimactic'' for him, after anticipating the work for so long. But he was still happy to have been there.
``It's nice to see 13 years of effort finally come to fruition,'' he said Tuesday, several hours after his boss, Utilities Director Clarence O. Warnstaff told the City Council of the event. ``I wish the whole city and council could have been there,'' Leahy said, ``but it was really good.''
The construction will take two years - if it is not interrupted again with litigation from one of the pipeline's many opponents. In 1990, when construction began the first time, North Carolina obtained an injunction that quickly stopped virtually all work. The court allowed the city's contractors to install only about a mile of the 76-mile route.
In September, Virginia Beach received its final federal permit and, despite an appeal by North Carolina, began the process of hiring construction contractors. The appeal is still pending, and pipeline opponents in Virginia have filed suit as well, but Beach officials have decided it's now or never.
``We're confident that we're going to prevail,'' said City Council member Louis R. Jones, who has led the council's pipeline efforts. ``We're burying the pipe. I'm glad it's there.''
Contractors laid about 1,600 feet of concrete pipe Monday and Tuesday in rural Southampton County near the Sussex County border. Each piece of pipe measures 20feet long and nearly 6 feet wide; and weighs 24,000 pounds.
Contractors dig a 10-foot-deep trench with a backhoe so big its bucket holds the equivalent of 27 wheelbarrows full of dirt, Leahy explained.
Then, each piece of pipe is lowered by a steel cable. A rubber O-ring is placed on the open end, and the tube is pushed into the end of the one already in place. The O-ring forms a seal.
A 1-foot-wide ``diaper'' is wrapped around the seal and pumped full of mortar to prevent corrosion and leakage, and a worker crouched inside the pipe fills the interior of the joint with grout.
The entire process takes about a quarter of an hour for each section of pipe. On a good day, Leahy said, workers can install 800 to 1,000 feet of pipe. At that rate, it will take 400 days to lay the pipeline.
The ending of the General Assembly's 1996 session Monday means Virginia legislators will not try to tinker with the pipeline this year, despite strong opposition in the Roanoke River basin. But North Carolina has promised to continue its fight. ILLUSTRATION: Map
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON WATER SUPPLY PLAN by CNB