Proposed Reservoir on Peninsula Not Needed, Environmentalists Say

By SCOTT HARPER

By Scott Harper

The Virginian-Pilot

Environmentalists charged Thursday that estimates used to rationalize the King William Reservoir are proving to be grossly exaggerated, and that the proposed $300 million project to provide drinking water on the Peninsula might be not needed after all.

In releasing two new studies, the environmentalists said population growth is tapering off in the region and demand for water is waning, too – contrary to what the project’s chief sponsor, Newport News Waterworks, told regulators when seeking government permits for the 1,500-acre reservoir.

Water sales, for example, slightly decreased between 1993 and 2007, the activists said, while projections for water usage in 2010 will be about 17 million gallons a day too high if current trends hold.

“The water’s simply not needed,” said Glen Besa, state director of the Sierra Club, one of several environmental groups that have fought the reservoir for two decades. “But instead of reassessing the project and considering their own statistics, they just keep moving ahead.”

Dave Morris, a project manager with Newport News Waterworks, said the two studies appear to be misleading – his office was not given copies of them until just before a morning news conference – and seem to compare “apples-to-oranges” data.

Morris also said the new criticism appears to be politically motivated and intended to cloud a proposed vote next week on a $20 million finance package for acquiring land in King William County, where the reservoir would be built.

“I don’t think they’ve ever understood this thing, and I’m not sure they really want to,” Morris said, referring to years of petitions, court challenges and news conferences by activists against the reservoir.

In the works since 1987, the project would include a new lake where as much as 12.2 billion gallons of raw water would be stored. Endorsed by most business leaders and politicians on the Peninsula, it would help supply drinking water for the next 50 years to cities and counties from Hampton to James City County, Williamsburg to York County.

Environmentalists argue, however, that hundreds of acres of wetlands would be swamped, including archaeological sites near American Indian reservations, that water quality and fishing stocks would suffer, and that the additional drinking water might not even be needed.

“We think Newport News should pull the plug on this,” said Kelly Place, a waterman opposed to the project. “Short of that, they should at least look at considering these numbers before they spend more money and put their customers at risk.”

Morris said the real numbers to be examined are the long-term ones; they predict the region will be short by 15 million gallons of drinking water a day by 2040.

Water demand is down slightly, he said, but conservation methods and a slowing economy are playing roles in the trend that environmentalists do not seem to recognize.

“The bottom line,” he said, “is that we’ve committed $60 million toward this project, have obtained all our permits and hope to complete as soon as possible what we think is a necessary and needed project.”

Under the current timetable, the reservoir would open in 2019 or 2020. That could easily change, though, because the project faces two court challenges from environmental groups, and a key state permit must be renewed in 2012.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com

the project

A new lake would store as much as 12.2 billion gallons of water to help supply drinking water to cities and counties on the Peninsula for the next 50 years. Map, Page 5

Originally published by BY SCOTT HARPER.

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