It’s a done deal—except for the deal. Both Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors last week approved Ragged Mountain Reservoir as the preferred alternative to meet water needs until 2055. However, the tougher questions about mitigation, money and phasing remain unresolved.
No one disputes that Ragged Mountain Reservoir should be the location for developing future area water supply. Environmental groups, including The Nature Conservancy and Piedmont Environmental Council have endorsed the Ragged Mountain option, according to Thomas Frederick, director for the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA). Options previously discussed, such as developing a Buck Mountain reservoir or piping water from the James River, are deemed too environmentally damaging.
At issue now is how the City will be compensated for the 135 acres that will be lost when the 67′-high existing dam is raised an additional 45′. Not only does the City own the land, but it’s expected that future increases in water consumption will come from county, not city, growth. In fact, city water demands are lower now than they were in 1983.
City Councilor Kevin Lynch has proposed that compensation come in the form of land surrounding urban streams.
“We recognize that the permitting agencies would like to see the upstream areas preserved as part of this,” said Lynch at last Monday’s City Council meeting, “But we must also preserve the urban stream environment, even if that goes above and beyond the regulatory requirement.”
Lynch also wants to complete the project in phases, reasoning that, if all 45′ are added at once, current taxpayers will subsidize future development unfairly.
In the next two weeks, the Albemarle County Service Authority and the RWSA will need to add their approval before the plan is submitted to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Both Frederick and Lynch hope that the final details will be resolved by the fall, so that construction can begin by 2009.—Will Goldsmith
