On Tuesday, September 8, City Council held a public hearing on the relocation of a sewer pipeline into McIntire Park to make room for the Meadowcreek Parway (MCP). City Council moved the ordinance to a second reading with some amendments.
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Opponents of the Meadowcreek Parkway (MCP) came out in full force to protest the destruction of McIntire Park. The City Council held a public hearing on the relocation of a sewer pipeline into McIntire Park to make room for the road. “This is a public park,” said Daniel Bluestone, UVA professor and member of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park. “The Rivanna Sewer and Water Authority is on the verge of becoming a main player in the maintenance of our park.” |
Councilor David Brown was mostly concerned with the “firm” language of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) ordinance in reference to the flora around the sewer line. According to the ordinance, “trees, shrubs, fences, buildings, overhangs or other improvements or obstructions shall not be located within the Sewer Easement.” Also, if adopted as is, the easement gives the RWSA the right to remove any “obstructions” and cut down trees to provide a safe sewer line installation process and maintenance.
“The core of the issue is to have to sign an easement with such strict requirements,” said Brown, adding that although he is a supporter of the MCP, he would want “to see a parkway that we are proud of.”
Mayor Dave Norris, opponent of the MCP, said that if in the process of this project, “we tear all the nature away … the trees that are going to screen the historic properties, etc., I think we shot ourselves in the foot.”
Opponents of the parkway came out in full force.
“This is a public park,” said Daniel Bluestone, UVA professor and member of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park. “The Rivanna Sewer and Water Authority is on the verge of becoming a main player in the maintenance of our park.” In fact, whoever owns an utility pipeline pays for its maintenance.
Bluestone, a vocal opponent of any disruption to McIntire Park, said that the natural landscape of trees and shrubbery along Rio Road (at the beginning of the MCP) “has been decimated, by not only the road project, but by the sewer project.”
The RWSA owns a sanitary sewer collection line that is commonly known as the Schenk’s Branch Interceptor, which runs approximately 7,000 linear feet. According to a city staff report, the line begins on the east side of McIntire Road, close to the county office building, and continues along McIntire Road and through McIntire Park.
City staff reported that the 21" pipe is “undersized” for current use and a new 30" pipe will have to be installed. RWSA will be replacing and relocating about 640 feet of the line, and an additional 1,075 feet will relocated by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to make way for the construction of McIntire Road Extended.
The replacement of the line will cost the City $815,730, with about $455,000 going toward excavation for the installment of the new, bigger pipeline, deeper in the ground (about 15′).
Coalition member Peter Kleeman urged City Council neither to take action nor to deny the permanent easement. According to Kleeman, the road project has not matured enough for the VDOT to request right-of-way related easements.
“We are not at a resolution point,” he told C-VILLE in an interview. “It’s my understanding that you don’t do right-of-way acquisition until you have completed the preliminary engineering, and preliminary engineering, I would say, is not done.” Kleeman says that VDOT does not have a final concept for the road yet.
“My major concern about the [City Council] discussion … is the fact that there are different sets of plans being given to different organizations, different agencies, jurisdictions,” he says. Kleeman argues that VDOT has given different plans to the Corps of Engineers and one set to the city.
In July, VDOT was temporarily denied a permit to build McIntire Road Extended, through the park, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because the project did not show a “logical terminus” on the southern end of McIntire Road. “In order for us to continue our evaluation of the proposed McIntire Road Extension, the work must be a single and complete project with logical termini,” the Corps of Engineers wrote in the letter.
Although Kleeman is “disappointed” by the decision of the City Council to move the ordinance to a second reading, he remains optimistic that something that will stop the construction of the road.
Installing the new Schenk’s Branch Interceptor will cost the city approximately $48,600, for it will cover improving the existing main sanitary sewer in the city that will tie with the interceptor near Melbourne Road.
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