Last December, representatives from the Albemarle Place development gathered with staff from the city, county and Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) to discuss the Meadow Creek interceptor, the main hub for sewage all along Route 29N. For Albemarle Place, a mixed-use project planned for 700 residential units and roughly 40 new stores surrounding Sperry Marine, the meeting was a disaster.
 The Albemarle Place development will remain but a sketch until improvements can be made to the Meadow Creek interceptor for water and sewer. |
“I think everybody sitting around the table was flabbergasted,” says Frank Cox, master planner for Albemarle Place, of the revelation that the interceptor is already at maximum capacity. Consequently, it must be improved before the new development can hook up. “It blew us away,” Cox says. “It’s causing delays and huge consternation. …We had gotten to the point where we were rip-raring and ready to go and then this fell in our lap.”
The Meadow Creek interceptor was first installed in the 1950s by the City of Charlottesville, which had little idea of the development that would sprout up all along Route 29. Now it is woefully inadequate and up to Tom Frederick, executive director for the RWSA, to fix. “Tom Frederick should be memorialized for this because he is the one person and the only person with whom we have spoken as representatives of Albemarle Place,” Cox says.
“I think it’s fair to say…that we need to significantly improve the efforts, the funding, and maintenance we are providing to the sewer system,” Frederick says. A comprehensive sewer study was begun almost as soon as Frederick started and is still ongoing, with 2008 eyed as a finish date. “Our future funding requests for our budget—which includes a wholesale sewer increase—are geared toward a very broad vision to provide a very high level of service in maintaining our sewer system.”
First, the RWSA will release a preliminary engineering report on the Meadow Creek interceptor at the end of May. It then goes to the city and county for feedback, and then back to the engineers for design. Only after that can construction begin on either a new interceptor or improvements on the existing one—or possibly both.
“I am personally comfortable that Frederick is going to get the job done,” Cox says, “but that’s subject to any politicians getting in there and throwing roadblocks in his way.”
Story follow-up: C-VILLE writer Jayson Whitehead joined host Coy Barefoot on WINA’s Charlottesville Right Now to discuss this story (Podcast made available by the Charlottesville Podcasting Network). Active discussion of this story has been on-going at cvillenews.com.
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