THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100486
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 70 lines
Hoping to make trouble for a water project that's as essential to North Carolina's largest city as the Lake Gaston pipeline is to Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach officials have filed a formal protest against a project in Charlotte.
Virginia Beach says if it has to get North Carolina's permission to build the Gaston pipeline - as North Carolina is insisting in a federal appeals court - then Charlotte should need South Carolina's OK to expand its water supply system.
The Beach made its argument in writing last month to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, asking the commission to delay consideration of a permit for the Charlotte project until after the federal court rules on the Gaston case.
``Virginia Beach submits this protest simply to assert that the same rules of law must apply to public water supply projects in North Carolina as to public water supply projects in Virginia,'' the city wrote in papers filed with the energy commission.
The city made its protest ``reluctantly,'' the filing continues, because it does not believe that either North or South Carolina should have veto power over projects in other states.
``We just think this whole thing is foolishness,'' Virginia Beach counsel M. Scott Hart said.
North Carolina has been trying to derail the Lake Gaston pipeline for most of the 14 years the project has been on the drawing boards. North Carolina is worried that its own residents and businesses will suffer if Virginia Beach is allowed to take water from Lake Gaston, just before it flows across the state line.
Carolina officials said Virginia Beach is wrong to compare the Charlotte project with the Gaston one. South Carolina does not deserve permitting rights over the Charlotte project, they said, because the projects are significantly different and because South Carolina has not raised any concerns.
``Life's not necessarily fair,'' Charlotte Senior Deputy City Attorney H. Michael Boyd said.
``North Carolina feels that it has a legitimate basis for complaining about what Virginia Beach is planning to do, and the law allows us to exercise those rights,'' he said. ``South Carolina has never expressed any concern about the water we have been withdrawing for many many years or for this proposal to increase the withdrawals.''
South Carolina officials did not complain about the project during a North Carolina review or during the energy commission's formal comment period. Officials couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.
Boyd said the two water projects are similar in that both are located near state lines. But while Lake Gaston straddles the North Carolina-Virginia border, Mountain Island Lake - from where Charlotte will draw its water - is more than a dozen miles from South Carolina.
Charlotte has been taking water from the Catawba River at that point since before there was a Mountain Island Lake, Boyd added, while Lake Gaston predates the Beach's pipeline by half a century.
Boyd said his city's project also will return 70 percent of the water it takes out of the Catawba River to the same basin, while Virginia Beach will return none of its Gaston water to the Roanoke River basin.
``Other than trying to find someone to share in their misery, I really don't know what Virginia Beach thinks it can accomplish by doing this,'' he said. ``What concerns me is they literally went out of their way looking for someone to ambush, and unfortunately we're the only ones they found.''
Charlotte, which provides water to half a million people in Mecklenburg County, hopes to take 184 million gallons a day more from Mountain Island Lake, to supplement the 130 million it takes now.
Virginia Beach wants to take up to 60 million gallons of water per day from Lake Gaston, keeping 48 million for itself and providing 10 million for Chesapeake and up to 1 million each for Franklin and Isle of Wight County.
KEYWORDS: PROTEST WATER