DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711050653

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JOHN MURPHY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   38 lines

BEACH A STEP CLOSER TO EASING WATER RESTRICTIONS NOV. 18 VOTE SET ON DROPPING MOST LIMITS.

In just two weeks, residents here may be free to reach for a garden hose instead of a 3-gallon bucket to water their lawns or wash their cars.

The City Council will vote Nov. 18 on whether to lift its 5 1/2-year-old water use restrictions. The Lake Gaston pipeline will officially be dedicated Friday, and it is already sending water into the region's supply, which eliminates the need for some of the restrictions.

The council set the date Tuesday after a briefing by city staff members, who explained the impacts of repealing a 1992 ordinance that placed a moratorium on water hookups and restricted personal water use.

Clarence O. Warnstaff, Beach director of public utilities, said his staff supported easing most of the water restrictions, but not the moratorium on water hookups for new development.

Under the proposal, residents could wash cars, water lawns and plants, fill swimming pools and run fountains.

Neighborhoods that have been functioning with groundwater wells would be allowed to hook-up to the city water system. City officials say about 2,300 homes would benefit from this change.

All totaled, these changes are expected to increase city water use by about 4 million gallons per day, up from its current consumption of 32 million gallons per day.

At full capacity, the Gaston pipeline would provide about 45 million gallons of water per day to the Beach. Chesapeake users will be entitled to 10 million gallons. Suffolk could use 2 million.

New water hookups would be restricted for the next two years while the city completes work on the pipeline. Norfolk is expanding a plant needed to treat Lake Gaston water and a pumping station in Suffolk.

Until this work is completed, Warnstaff said, summer droughts could force the Beach to resume the restrictions.

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