Franklin County Water Deal Raises Some Questions

By Mason Adams mason.adams@roanoke.com (540) 981-3149

ROCKY MOUNT — Between the construction boom at Smith Mountain Lake and its increasing role as a bedroom community for Roanoke, Franklin County has become the fastest-growing locality in the Roanoke region.

With the Western Virginia Water Authority agreement announced in April, the county is making strides to target more areas for commercial growth.

The deal will extend almost 12 miles of 12-inch water main down U.S. 220 from Roanoke County to the commercial complex at the intersection of Wirtz Road. Officials say it will allow Franklin County to guide commercial growth along that corridor.

Franklin County’s deal with its neighbors to the north raises the question of why the government didn’t look closer to home for public water, particularly toward Rocky Mount. The town is located just three miles south of the Wirtz Road intersection, and the town and county have negotiated over water for years.

But the county’s long-term plans, combined with the frayed relationship between the two governments, led to a failure to come to terms.

Officials from the two localities have sparred since the mid- ’90s, when the county and town squabbled over the details of extending water and sewer lines to Wal-Mart, which then was outside the town’s boundaries. They hammered out an agreement in 1999, but tensions and hard feelings have remained.

The county’s official explanation for its decision to draw water from Roanoke County instead of Rocky Mount is that the town doesn’t have enough water.

“Rocky Mount did not have sufficient water capacity in their system for the county’s long-range needs,” said Franklin County Administrator Rick Huff.

The water authority expects its water supply to remain in a surplus condition until at least 2040.

Rocky Mount, however, has in recent years drilled near its current water facility in hopes of adding a new well or two to its water supply. Those efforts failed.

Rocky Mount Mayor Steve Angle said despite that, the town does have some extra capacity. He blames the failure to reach an agreement on rates and a lack of specificity from the county on exactly what it wanted.

“I think what broke off the negotiations was they did not agree with what we wanted to charge them for the water,” Angle said. “They could not give us an exact amount [of capacity needed]. They couldn’t define the service area, nor the average cost for a hook- up.”

The town currently charges $11 per month for an in-town customer using 3,000 gallons or less. Customers outside town limits are charged twice that.

The town’s 2006 average charge for 5,000 gallons was $17.60, which is less than the average of $19.94 for a group of 20 water providers across the state, according to a study by Blacksburg engineering firm Draper Aden Associates.

The county, meanwhile, plans to charge $32 a month for 4,000 gallons, with the rate structure going up from there.

But Huff and other county officials insist that rates played a small role, particularly when compared to the county’s growing need for water.

In June 2002, Franklin County agreed to buy water from the Bedford County Public Service Authority, which draws from Smith Mountain Lake. Under the terms of the agreement, the county can pipe up to 400,000 gallons a day across the Hales Ford Bridge and through lines that run along Virginia 122 to Westlake.

There are also vague plans to eventually build a water plant on the south side of Smith Mountain Lake.

“The county is attempting to secure an intake permit on the south side of the lake to protect our interest in drawing from water from Smith Mountain Lake in the future,” Huff said.

The idea, said Union Hall Supervisor Charles Poindexter, is to eventually run a line from Union Hall or Penhook up Virginia 40 to Rocky Mount, while also connecting that line up Virginia 834 to the Westlake line.

“That’s sort of the grand scheme so we can be interconnected to different sources,” Poindexter said. “If there’s a shortage in one, or if a plant breaks down, we can still provide water through the connected lines.

“You don’t build your own water supply and do your own thing anymore. Those days are over. You connect to a regional water supply,” Poindexter said.

Construction of the line down U.S. 220 will be done by the water authority, which will issue bonds for the project and own the line when it is completed.

Roanoke County and Franklin County will each pay for their portions of the extension. Franklin County already has budgeted for debt service payments for its $3.2 million share of the line, Huff said.

Water authority officials said they expect it will take a little more than three years to design and build the line.

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