DATE: Saturday, May 17, 1997                TAG: 9705170271

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TONI GUAGENTI, staff writer 

DATELINE: WINDSOR                           LENGTH:   92 lines

LAST BIT OF GASTON PIPELINE NOW IN PLACE THE MILESTONE LINK COULD GO WITH THE FLOW IN DECEMBER.

Without a drum roll or a golden spike, the conduit to Lake Gaston finally reached the end of the line Friday morning in Isle of Wight County.

Rockdale Pipeline Inc., a Georgia-based contractor, faced no obstacles when it laid the final 12 feet of pipe connecting Lake Gaston to a spot just outside Windsor, 76 miles away.

There, Gaston water will mix with Norfolk's water sources, eventually to be treated and distributed to the region.

The laying of the last section Friday was a milestone in Virginia Beach's 15-year struggle to secure a reliable, plentiful water source for its citizens. But for a project with such a tumultuous history, Friday's event was anticlimactic.

``Your reaction might be, `That's all there is today?' '' said Ken Jobe, an engineer for Michael Baker Jr. Inc., a Virginia Beach company overseeing the project.

``Yes, that's it,'' Michael Baker said at a Burger King in the rural town before a media contingent descended on the densely wooded construction site about two miles away.

Since 1982, North Carolina has fought the Beach over whether the city has the right to take water from Lake Gaston at the Virginia/North Carolina border, about 125 miles west of the Beach. The water will be used for drinking by Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Isle of Wight County and Franklin.

Friday provided workers with optimal construction weather - clear skies, a slight breeze and no humidity - to place what has become a symbolic piece of the turbulent pipeline saga.

The claw of a dinosaur-sized crane clutched a bright green sling that held the pipe. Gently, the claw carried the piece, 5 feet in diameter, to a muddy hole where two other pipes awaited the fit.

Finally, in the gaping ground, Rockdale workers rushed to connect the pieces with long steel bolts.

Even before workers tightened the bolts, city officials downplayed Friday's event.

``I don't really view it as a big day,'' Clarence O. Warnstaff, director of the city's Department of Utilities, said this week. ``We still have work to do in order to make the project a reality.''

Officials said the project is 95 percent complete. A few loose ends remain:

The construction of a pumping station at Lake Gaston, scheduled for completion in August.

The laying of about 150 feet of pipe that will serve as pressure-control structures at several different spots along the pipeline.

Ninety days of pipeline testing, scheduled to begin in September.

If everything goes according to plan, water could flow in December.

``That's the big day for me,'' Warnstaff said.

Still, Beach officials knock on that proverbial piece of wood.

Friday's pipe-laying comes a week after the city won the latest battle with its water foe to the south. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling upheld permits for the pipeline, stating that North Carolina did not have the right to block the project under the Clean Water Act.

North Carolina maintains the city has no right to take water from the Roanoke River via Lake Gaston because it could pose environmental hazards.

Agencies from the Army Corps of Engineers to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have dissented with that view. So have several courts, which have thwarted North Carolina's attempts to block the project.

North Carolina has about another month to appeal the latest decision to the full appeals court or the U.S. Supreme Court. An appeal appears imminent.

But Beach officials are confident the city will prevail after having won nearly a dozen battles along the way.

Construction of the main portion of the pipeline started in March 1996. Three companies, awarded five contracts, laid the 398,000 feet of pipe. The conduit is underground, except for six points where it crosses rivers.

The end of the pipeline sits next to the spot where Norfolk's water sources meet and discharge into the Ennis Pond Channel, the headwaters of Lake Prince, a Norfolk reservoir.

Eventually, the Lake Gaston water will discharge with water from the Nottoway and Blackwater rivers into Ennis Pond, where they'll flow to Norfolk's treatment plants.

Norfolk has agreed to receive, carry, treat and deliver the Gaston water to Virginia Beach and other communities.

A swath of trees had been cleared by a subcontractor to Rockdale to make way for the pipeline, which could eventually carry 60 million gallons of water a day from Lake Gaston.

The Beach will use about 48 million of those gallons, and Chesapeake, a one-sixth owner in the project, will use about 10 million. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot

Workers from Rockdale Pipeline Inc. fit bolts to glands (the yellow

retainers) to seal connections for the last piece of the Gaston

pipeline, which was put in place Friday in Windsor, Va. More work

needs to be done, but water could flow in December.

Photo by Vicki Cronis/ The Virginian-Pilot

[The last pipe, about 5 feet in diameter...] KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE

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