City, county at odds over water delays

Officials thought they had figured out how to supply the area’s drinking water for the next 50 years.

But facing growing cost estimates, and persistent critics, Charlottesville and Albemarle County officials agreed late last week that they have a lot of talking to do — particularly about what parts of the plan need to be revisited.

As a result, a Nov. 25 meeting has been called on the heels of a City Council resolution seeking a review of major pieces of the water supply plan.

“We don’t want to see anymore big surprises like what we saw with the cost of replacing the dam,” said Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris. “And we’d like to get better numbers on different components of the plan before we go forward, so we can know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into here.”

The Ragged Mountain Dam project — one of the major elements of the water supply plan — was initially thought to cost $37 million. That estimate more than doubled in September, however, when an engineering firm discovered fractured and weathered bedrock where it had planned to build the foundation.

The new cost estimate became ammunition for the water supply plan’s critics, who say that the plan is likely to cost a lot more than the initial $142.8 million estimate.

The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority asked the engineering firm to stop working on the dam while an independent panel of experts evaluates the cost estimate.

The Charlotte-sville City Council approved a resolution on Nov. 3 to review major elements of the entire water supply plan.

At a Nov. 5 Board of Supervisors meeting, some supervisors suggested countering the resolution with a statement of support for the existing plan.

“Yeah, I’d like to have something on the record, because they’ve been unilateral here,” said Supervisor David L. Slutzky, who said that he didn’t understand why all of the reviews in the resolution were necessary. He said that the water supply plan had already been approved, after thorough consideration and analysis.

Slutzky recommended that the Board of Supervisors make a statement saying it doesn’t object to doing some of the reviews requested by City Council — but not as a condition of whether the plan should go forward.

The city’s resolution calls for no work to be done on the dam until all of the studies are complete.

Supervisor Dennis S. Rooker called for a meeting with City Council, which he said might have been influenced by inaccurate information circulating in the community.

In addition, Supervisor Sally H. Thomas said the City Council had recently received resolutions from neighborhood associations urging it to re-examine the entire water supply plan, “based on the type of erroneous information that’s been going around.”

Late last week, a joint meeting was scheduled for 2 p.m. Nov. 25 between the City Council, the Board of Supervisors and the boards of directors for the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority and the Albemarle County Service Authority. Officials plan to determine the meeting location early this week.

Many of the decision-makers involved with the water supply plan said the joint meeting is a step in the right direction. Yet, some have expressed concern that the reviews called for in the resolution are redundant, could delay the water supply plan and could be expensive.

The resolution calls for a panel of at least three engineers to conduct reviews to, among other things, examine water demand projections, explore structural changes that could increase water conservation and review the design of the Ragged Mountain Dam to build it at the lowest possible cost.

“I think a lot of things that are in the resolution have already been done, and that’s why I want to ask them: If they question the validity of some of the reports, then do they really want to spend upwards of a million dollars to redo those studies?” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Kenneth C. Boyd.

Thomas L. Frederick, RWSA’s executive director, told the Board of Supervisors at its Nov. 5 meeting that conducting the reviews outlined in the City Council’s resolution could take nine months to a year — “if you fast-track” the work. He said experts have given him rough estimates of $750,000 to $1 million-plus to conduct the reviews.

Frederick added that he was concerned about meeting a state deadline to repair the aging Ragged Mountain Dam.

“The time we’re taking on this is making it probably to the point [where] it’s almost impossible for us to meet the June 2011 deadline that Dam Safety has imposed on us,” Frederick said. “And this community does become at risk for enforcement actions.”

The Department of Conservation and Recreation could force the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to be drained, he said, placing residents on mandatory water restrictions for months or even years.

Norris said Frederick might have misunderstood the intent of the City Council’s resolution.

“I think he’s basing that on the assumption that we’re looking for this full-blown engineering study,” Norris said.

Norris and Charlottesville Manager Gary O’Connell said they wouldn’t expect the additional reviews to significantly prolong the existing stop-work order for dam construction, and the cost would be much less than $1 million.

“There’s nothing in here that would slow down the design of the dam moving forward,” O’Connell said.

“Since we’re pausing to look at the dam, because the cost estimates came in too high, we want to take a look at some of these other things and just be sure that it makes sense to go forward,” O’Connell said, adding that all five councilors still support the existing water supply plan.

“I think part of it, too, is enough people have questions about it now, and with the cost increases that came in on the dam design, I think the city feels like it’s important to stop and re-look,” he said. “We’re getting ready to spend a lot of money in the community. In the current economy, just be sure that it’s the right moves to be making.”

John Martin, a member of the Albemarle County Service Authority Board, said he sees “no reason not to go forward” with the water supply plan.

“I worked for 10 years as a citizen on the water supply plan, and … every single argument that’s being advanced now was advanced early in the water supply plan process,” said Martin, who’s also a member of the Rivanna River Basin Commission and the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir Stewardship Task Force.

If next week’s joint meeting helps the four boards better understand one other, they’ll end up closer to a sound water supply plan, Martin said. If not, they could end up closer to square one.