THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606250423
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 180 lines
The success of Virginia Beach's lengthy, multimillion-dollar effort to bring to South Hampton Roads up to 60 million gallons daily of Lake Gaston water is critically important to this region's future. Lake Gaston straddles the Virginia-North Carolina line 100 miles west of the Oceanfront.
Norfolk's release last weekend of a completed study, initiated several years ago, to determine how much water its extensive system could produce could damage that effort and has intensified tensions between the two cities.
Virginia Beach City Hall is angered by Norfolk's release of the study. It fears that the study's conclusion - that the Norfolk system could eventually safely yield up to 97 million gallons of water daily during a worst-case drought - will be used by North Carolina and Virginia localities in the Roanoke River Basin in their court cases to further delay or to halt the Beach's progress toward the lake. The Beach's fear is warranted.
For planning purposes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers chose a conservative 81 million gallons per day as the safe yield for the Norfolk system in a worst-case drought. But both Virginia Beach and Norfolk say the new study does not cancel South Hampton Roads' need for Lake Gaston water. We concur.
To further understanding of the issues raised by the study of the Norfolk water system, we publish (1) a statement by Virginia Beach City Manager James K. Spore, (2) a Virginia Beach news release quoting Director of Utilities Clarence Warnstaff and (3) a statement by Norfolk, all issued last week.
STATEMENT BY VIRGINIA BEACH CITY MANAGER JAMES K. SPORE
Our staff has reviewed Norfolk's new safe-yield study over the past two weeks and has identified a number of obvious concerns. In addition, we asked Norfolk for the data that backs up the study on June 3, 1996, and followed that up with a letter on June 7, 1996. Norfolk has refused to give us all the information we requested, and told us they would give us other information only under certain restrictions that we find unacceptable. This is an important document that could affect the well-being of our city and region, and we believe we are entitled to examine the data on which it is based. Our council has asked me to publicly repeat our request for this information so we can complete our analysis of the study. I hereby ask Norfolk to send us the information we have requested by tomorrow evening. (Editor's note: Virginia Beach on Friday filed a lawsuit to obtain the backup data.)
VIRGINIA BEACH NEWS RELEASE
A study of the potential ``safe yield'' of the Norfolk water system has no impact on the need for the Lake Gaston pipeline. The study, commissioned by the Norfolk city attorney's office and released (June 17), is seriously in error in suggesting that Norfolk could develop additional water supplies, according to a review by the Virginia Beach Department of Public Utilities and its consultants. This review shows clearly that no new water would be created to meet the needs of Virginia Beach or Chesapeake, major partners in the Lake Gaston project.
``Any additional water found in this study is nothing more than paper water,'' says Clarence Warnstaff, director of public utilities. ``You can't drink, it, you can't bathe in it, you can't wash your kids in it. But it looks pretty good sitting on a shelf.''
Warnstaff says the study relies on unreliable data as well as unreliable methods to compute the data and it ignores legal, economic and environmental realities that limit the availability of ``safe yield'' water, which refers to water available for citizens during a time of drought. He adds he is confident that regulators will see the technical flaws of the study.
Specifically, the study:
1. Significantly overstates inflows to Norfolk's reservoirs, and therefore overstates the safe yield. For example, the report assumes inflows to Norfolk's reservoirs that are many times greater than inflows from neighboring watersheds and water systems during the same time periods.
2. Assumes Norfolk will be allowed to divert and appropriate 100 percent of the flow for both the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers without regard to downstream environmental impacts, impacts to other wastewater discharges, the rights of riparian owners or the rights of North Carolina.
3. Assumes Norfolk will significantly increase long-term groundwater withdrawals from a critical groundwater-management area. It is unlikely that the state and local approvals necessary to make this a reality will be forthcoming.
4. Calculates safe yield from an overly optimistic and theoretical perspective, even including assumptions that the report itself acknowledges are unattainable from a practical standpoint. For example, the report states that Norfolk's groundwater cannot be used unless it is treated before it is pumped into the reservoirs, but ignores the fact that 20 percent of the groundwater would be lost during the treatment process. Another example is the assumption that the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers pump stations would be activated whenever Norfolk's reservoirs are one-inch below spillway level, even though the report recognized ``that this theoretical approach to operating the system is unattainable in the field.''
5. Assumes that Norfolk's reservoirs would operate at dangerously low levels (less than 16-day supply) for a period of more than one year during a major drought, and that all usable storage would be exhausted at certain times. This is not sound water-supply planning. The report leaves no margin for safety to avoid the health and welfare catastrophe that would result if all supply were exhausted.
The report is contrary to actual experience with Norfolk's system for the past 20 years. Norfolk has restricted Virginia Beach during each and every dry period for the past two decades, and four years ago forced Virginia Beach to undergo permanent restrictions and a moratorium on expansions of its water system. ``This water has not been there in the past. It is not there now, and it will not be there in the future,'' says Warnstaff.
NORFOLK'S POSITION STATEMENT
After reviewing the recent safe-yield report submitted by the engineering firm of Gannett Fleming Inc., it is the city of Norfolk's position that the region's need for the Lake Gaston project remains unchanged and continues to have our full support.
The safe-yield report was commissioned by the Norfolk city attorney's office to validate the present allocation of our water-system assets. The study is also a requirement of our water contracts with Virginia Beach. The report fills a great need for updated information to ensure that we continue to meet water needs today and are prepared to serve people in South Hampton Rods in the future.
Initially, Virginia Beach's Lake Gaston project was planned in the early 1980s to meet estimated regional water shortage of 60 million gallons per day more than existing supplies in the year 2030. This was based on the existing date relative to how much water the region could supply without Lake Gaston. The new Safe Yield Study contains two important new calculations for this regional water supply.
First: With very careful operation of the system's water sources (two river intakes, nine reservoirs and four deep wells), the potential safe yield of the Norfolk water system could be about 97 million gallons a day (mgd), somewhat more than was estimated in earlier studies. The study conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1984 estimated a 92 mgd safe yield.
Second: The study also concluded that, even with careful operation of the current system, not all of the water identified is now available because well-water sources (used when reservoirs drop) produce significant water-quality problems when mixed with reservoir water. Further, the study said that the well water should not be used until and unless these problems are overcome, except in emergency situations.
Therefore, taking both new findings into account, 81 mgd, an amount slightly above the earlier figure of 79 mgd, emerged as the revised usable safe yield in 1996.
Although the report does encourage us that we are not overtaxing the present uses of our water assets based on current allocations, it confirms our conviction and that of earlier studies that the Lake Gaston project is necessary.
The 1984 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study estimated the potential system capacity to be 92 mgd. In that study, the Corps discounted for various reasons several of the same elements the Gannett Fleming study retained. This explains the wide differences between the figures previously used and the estimate used in the most-recent report.
Additionally, new pumps were installed in the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers pump stations in 1984. Replacing these original 1940-era Navy pumps improved reliability and restored capacity, thus enabling us to pump at lower river levels and raising the river contributions above that shown in earlier studies. Although earlier studies assumed a minimum flowby at the river intakes due to pump-station weaknesses, this study assumed no flowby requirements.
It should be pointed out that safe-yield calculations attempt to predict drought and water need conditions far into the future. The drought conditions used in this study are those defined by the Virginia Health Department, i.e., the worst drought for this system since 1930. We know that droughts worse than this can happen and have happened in Virginia history; therefore, we believe that a conservative estimate is essential for the health and prosperity of the region.
The most-important fact is that need for Lake Gaston's resources remains. Managing a water supply is a multigenerational - not a five-, 10- or even 20-year - responsibility. Nearly 15 years ago, the Lake Gaston project was sized at 60 million gallons a day. Studies completed at that time projected South Hampton Roads would require an additional 60 mgd to meet needs through the year 2030. Even if we chose to ignore all of the other mitigating factors and accepted that Norfolk could invest tens of millions of dollars in equipment and processes to wring every drop of water from existing resources, over the next 50 years, a 40- to 45-mgd shortfall still would remain.
In the short term, the study found that Norfolk can deliver an average annual supply of water to Virginia Beach almost 2 mgd more than the 30 mgd cap in the current contract. In the long term, it says that Norfolk water system could reliably provide about 16 mgd more than the 79 mgd safe yield previously accepted.
Under the Norfolk/Virginia Beach water contract, Norfolk has informed Virginia Beach that it can supply almost 2 mgd (1.86 mgd) more water on an average daily basis. Treatment-plant limitations prevent Norfolk from increasing the maximum (peak) day supply limits until the current construction for expansion is completed in 1998.
The city of Norfolk continues to operate its system in a safe and effective manner and looks forward to receiving the pipeline water in 1998 at Lake Prince for treatment and delivery to Virginia Beach.
KEYWORDS: WATER SUPPLY PLAN VIRGINIA BEACH
NORFOLK LAKE GASTON PROPOSALS by CNB