Fluvanna holds emergency talks on water

The Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors is holding an emergency meeting this morning to decide the next move in its contentious efforts to develop a water system.

The board will meet at 8 a.m. to decide whether county representatives on the James River Water Authority can spend up to $5,000 to apply for funding from a state authority bond issue to finance water infrastructure projects.

A yes vote by the board would pay a portion of the water authority’s application fee for the Virginia Resources Authority’s fall bond sale.

The vote will not approve a controversial service agreement between the county and the joint water authority with Louisa County, officials said. But it might give the two localities more time to work on a solution to their joint effort to provide water service to the counties, which broke down earlier this week.

“We’re not voting on whether to fund the water authority but to get a place holder in the upcoming bond issue and keep our options open,” said John Y. Gooch, Fluvanna County supervisor from the Palmyra district and a member of the water authority’s board of directors. “It won’t change the status of the authority.”

Fluvanna supervisors called the meeting Thursday, two days after Louisa officials said they would halt discussions and find other ways to supply water to the Zion Crossroads area. Louisa officials cited apparent reluctance by Fluvanna to fund the James River Water Authority and the fact that a Monday deadline for bond financing had passed as leading to the decision.

Fluvanna officials had hoped to renegotiate the authority’s funding documents to provide a better deal for the county.

Officials said the Virginia Resources Authority could grant an extension to Monday’s application deadline, which was missed as Fluvanna supervisors debated the water authority service agreement. That service agreement sets out how the authority would be funded and each county’s responsibility to pay for projects.

“I don’t know much about it other than that there’s been a flurry of e-mails,” said Willie L. Gentry, chairman of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors. “We’ll be interested to see if they are going to go forward. When you put your name on the line, that says a lot. We’re waiting to see what they’re going to do.”

The water authority has stirred political passion and opposition. The Fluvanna Taxpayers Association opposes the authority, believing that it would give Louisa County too much say in expanding and developing Fluvanna water systems and would raise Fluvanna taxes without demonstrated economic benefits.

“Without our county’s signature on the agreement, the joint water authority can’t borrow money or build a pipeline,” Elizabeth Franklin of the taxpayers association wrote in a statement sent to members Thursday. “Our supervisors must not give Louisa equal control over a pipeline that’s totally within our borders and equal say-so over expansions and expenses that will make our taxes go up.”

The counties created the water authority in 2009 as a way to provide water to areas of Fluvanna County and give Zion Crossroads a reliable source of water that’s not pumped from wells. The proposal has been talked about by the counties since the 1990s and became more important to county officials after the region suffered a brutal dry spell in 2001 and 2002. That’s when well levels dropped or dried up, river flows slowed and water rationing became a norm.