Charlottesville neighborhoods back dredging

Charlottesville neighborhoods are getting behind the fight to pursue dredging of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, adding to a growing group of residents expressing dissatisfaction with the region’s long-term water supply plan.
Six city neighborhoods — North Downtown, Woolen Mills, Fry’s Spring, Martha Jefferson, Jefferson Park and Starr Hill — have backed a resolution that would force the
City Council to take concrete action on a dredging study. Presented to city officials Monday night, the resolution states that the City Council would prohibit any excavation, deforestation or road construction unless it is shown that constructing the plan’s Ragged Mountain Reservoir dam and pipeline is less expensive and less environmentally destructive than dredging the South Fork reservoir.

In succinct statements, Maria Chapel of the Martha Jefferson Neighborhood Association and Gail McIntosh of the Jefferson Park Neighborhood Association said they encouraged councilors to adopt the proclamation.
When the City Council endorsed the area’s long-term water supply plan in June, the body also requested that dredging be examined more — even though officials agreed that dredging alone would not provide enough water to meet the region’s needs.

“It’s not a choice between one or the other because just dredging doesn’t give enough water,” Councilor David Brown said. Brown expressed reservations about approving the resolution because of its language, and the City Council had not taken action by press time.
Betty Mooney, one of the most adamant advocates of dredging and a member of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Supply Plan, said unambiguous information about dredging costs, its benefits and the area’s water needs should be specified before any plan is enacted. The resident-driven group distributed the resolution among several city neighborhoods.
“We feel that’s based on a faulty assumption right now,” Mooney said in an interview. The water supply plan was previously estimated to cost a total of $142.8 million. However, the Gannett Fleming engineering firm increased a $23.5 million dam estimate, a major component of the plan, to about $72 million. The Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority board has not endorsed the new cost estimate.

Sally H. Thomas, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and chairwoman of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir Stewardship Task Force, said the 13-member group is trying to determine whether dredging is the best course of action in the wake of the adoption of the water supply plan. Dredging South Fork would shrink the Ragged Mountain dam extension by a mere 5 feet, she said, and before any study is done the group must figure out why it should be done in the first place.
“That’s basically the question we’re working on,” Thomas said in an interview. “I think everyone wants to take good care of our infrastructure in general.”
But Mooney said she thinks the task force’s efforts are “irrelevant” and are actually delaying the dredging work. Instead, she said, information needs to be obtained from dredging experts.
“Now it’s time that we get beyond citizen task forces,” she said.