50-year water forecast too dire?

Officials may be vastly overestimating how much water residents need for the next 50 years, according to Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris.

If so, the area could ditch a plan to build a new dam at Ragged Mountain as part of the area’s water supply plan, he said, and dredge the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir instead.

“When you’re projecting that in 50 years we’re going to be using 5 percent less water ... I think that disregards a lot of advances that are already being made,” Norris said of conservation projections the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority received in 2004.

Because Charlottesville and Albemarle County residents have actually used far less water than had been projected, Norris said officials should re-evaluate the water demand figures.

“I’ve been saying for quite some time now that we need to revisit the demand projections, because I think they’re based on unrealistically low estimates of our community’s ability to get smarter in our use of water,” Norris said.

A 2004 analysis by Gannett Fleming called for a plan that assumed raw water use in 2008 would be about 12.5 million gallons per day, but the average raw water use in 2008 was actually 9.5 million gallons per day, according to data compiled by Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan.

For now, however, there are no plans under way to re-evaluate water demand figures.

“We are not updating a 50-year projection for the water supply plan,” said Thomas L. Frederick, executive director of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority. “The projection that was made for that purpose was approved by the state and federal regulatory agencies through the issuance of their approved permits in 2008, and neither the permits themselves nor any other legal or business requirement mandates that we update those projections at this time.”

Many other officials also said that re-evaluating the water demand figures wouldn’t be worthwhile.

They say that creating a water plan that relies on massive water conservation is risky — even if residents do conserve a lot of water, a new dam at Ragged Mountain is still needed for the community’s water needs to be met.

“To actually open the demand analysis is not a minor suggestion,” said Albemarle Supervisor Sally H. Thomas. “As I understand it, it would require opening the en-tire process, which I know some people would like to do, but it shouldn’t be entered into lightly.

Thomas acknowledges that the demand figure “could be too high. It’s hard to make 50-year projections.” However, erring on the safe side is wise, she said, because underestimating the amount of water needed could pose a major problem. Having too much water simply extends the life of the water supply plan.

“If the demand figures are wrong,” Thomas said, “then we have a 60-year plan instead of a 50-year plan.”

But Dede Smith, a member of Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan, said that the projections gathered in 2004 are no longer reliable because the community is using far less water than projected.

“The demand has just completely changed,” Smith said.

Kevin Lynch, a former Charlottesville city councilor who is now a member of the citizens group, said that although he agrees officials should not make overly optimistic estimates about how much water will be con-served, there should be an acknowledgement that new technology is going to significantly lower water usage.

Lynch said that proponents of the water supply plan don’t want to re-evaluate the demand figures. He said new projections would likely improve the case for an alternative water supply plan that is centered around dredging — which is exactly what the citizens group has advocated.

The cost of continuously dredging the South Fork reservoir is still unknown — although that dollar figure is some-thing officials hope to get a better sense of soon. Most agree that dredging alone wouldn’t supply nearly enough water for the growing community.

David L. Slutzky, chairman of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, said that the projections may have inadequately accounted for the fact that county officials are aggressively pushing for new commercial and residential developments to occur almost exclusive in the county’s designated growth areas.

If development occurs as Slutzky envisions, that would mean a disproportion number of new residents and businesses —perhaps more than officials had once projected — will be using public water as opposed to well water.

Liz Palmer, a member of the Albemarle County Service Authority, said that revisiting the water demand figures would not be prudent.

Reversing course on the approved plan because water usage has gone down some in the past few years would be irresponsible, regard-less, so conducting a new analysis would be a waste of time and money, she said.

The 50-year water supply plan for Charlottesville and Albemarle County was originally expected to cost $142.8 million and entails construction of a higher dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir to increase water storage from 464 million to 2.19 billion gallons.

To fill the reservoir to its new capacity, a pipeline from the South Fork Reservoir is to be built.

However, the initial estimate of $37 million to build the higher dam at Ragged Mountain has become shaky, since engineering firm Gannett Fleming said that it could actually cost more than double to build the new dam.

Officials were surprised by the price increase and halted work on the new dam. Gannett Fleming was recently fired, and the RWSA is now looking for a new firm to continue the work.

Mayor Norris said he’s unable to say whether the approved water supply plan could be altered, but he said that it makes sense to use the most up-to-date facts.

If the community conserves more water and dredging is deemed feasible, it might be logical to just increase the size of the pipeline that runs between the Ragged Mountain and South Fork reservoirs and enlarge the existing dam at Ragged Mountain, in-stead of building a new dam, he said.

“All of those things I just mentioned are ‘ifs,’” Norris added.