Dredging task force stagnates over details to put in report

Residents want a professional study on dredging the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, a local task force member said Wednesday night.

Tom Jones, representing adjoining property owners to the reservoir, cited strong public support for conducting the study. In addition to its recreational value, dredging would also strengthen the 50-year regional water supply plan in the short term and long term, he said of the strawman proposal based on public survey results.

A 13-member task force on dredging the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir worked Wednesday at the Albemarle County Office Building on developing a report to local officials. They spent the vast majority of the meeting trying to pin down facts to include in the report, however. That didn’t leave much time to discuss recommendations.

Sally H. Thomas, a member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and League of Women Voters who chairs the task force, said that the group wasn’t expected to finalize a report at the meeting. Two more gatherings were scheduled for December to complete the report.

Thomas prepared a PowerPoint presentation that she said was designed to be a starting point for the task force in its quest to create a report.

Agreeing on which facts were most relevant, however, was a point of contention.

The discussion about which facts were accurate, and which were most relevant, highlighted the on-going effort to present accurate and relevant information about dredging and the area’s water supply plan — despite a lot of contradicting information floating around.

Dede Smith, a member of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, insisted that a sentence stating one-time dredging would restore 400 million gallons was incomplete. She said that it should note that continued dredging would restore another 600 million gallons, for a total of a billion, over the duration of the area’s 50-year water supply plan.

Ridge Schuyler, of The Nature Conservancy, said that continued dredging would actually restore only an additional 500 million gallons of water.

Chris Gibson, a dredging expert and vice president of operations for Gahagan & Bryant Associates, estimated in May that it would cost about $275,000 to determine the cost and feasibility of dredging the reservoir. The study could cost another $50,000 to $250,000 in permits.