Council candidate gives how-to on dredging

The tranquility of an Albemarle County lake, a pristine home to herons and ducks, was disrupted Friday as Charlottesville resident Bob Fenwick moved in rented dredging equipment and began hauling out muck.

“This is not rocket science,” said Fenwick, who is running for the City Council as an independent and supports dredging the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir to meet the area’s water supply needs. He is among those in the area who are calling for dredging the reservoir instead of following the 50-year area water supply plan, which entails building a pipeline from South Fork to carry water to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and constructing a larger dam there.

Fenwick held the “community education exercise” to show how dredging can lift out sediment or other substances, eventually leading to cleaner water and increased capacity.

At the edge of the lake — which Fenwick surmised was about 4 to 5 acres and was secluded at the bottom of a hill in the county’s West Leigh neighborhood — rested a motorized mud pump and intake. Out of that, a long tube led from the water to a sectioned-off area lined with plastic and bordered by straw.

Once turned on, the pump whirred and murky water was sucked through the tube and pumped into the straw-lined area for filtration. The dark-brown muck that was slowly filling the lake’s edge would eventually be left behind.

“I’m just throwing this into the general hopper,” Fenwick said, saying that dredging was a simple engineering operation. “I don’t think people know a whole lot about dredging.”

The exercise was conducted on WINA radio host Coy Barefoot’s property. West Leigh is also home to Albemarle County Supervisor Sally H. Thomas and board candidate Duane Snow.

“My neighbors and I are looking at a lake that’s filling in,” said Barefoot, who has lived in West Leigh for five years. “This is our neighborhood issue.”

Fenwick said the small operation done Friday — the pump ran for no more than a couple of minutes — could work along the shoreline of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, but a much larger pump would have to be used and placed on a boat or barge for the procedure to be successful.

The former officer in the Army Corps of Engineers was unable to estimate how much sediment had been removed from the lake during the demonstration. But he said, “Once you dewater it, it’s the best topsoil you can get.”

“This is basic, but it gives you all the elements,” he said of the procedure, adding, “This suction technique … would be perfect for the Rivanna.”

Yet any dredging done on the reservoir would likely require permits that were not needed for the minute demonstration Friday. Thomas L. Frederick Jr., the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority’s executive director, said the dredging feasibility study would determine which permits the authority would need.

“We’re confident that a permit would be required by the [Virginia Department of Environmental Quality],” Frederick said.

“A dredging study is very, very complex,” he said, adding that elements such as dewatering and disposal sites must be considered.

But Fenwick did not have reservoirs alone in mind. He said that hydraulic dredging was waiting to be done on many neighborhood lakes, and doing so could raise nearby homes’ property values.

“This is work waiting to be done,” he said. “This is a green job.”