Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 22, 1993 TAG: 9308220193
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Towns, cities and industries have shoved straws into the jug - some at the top, some in the middle, some at the bottom - and each day they siphon off the water they need.
It would stand to reason that if those with the straws at the bottom of the jug suck out too much water, those at the top of the jug may run dry.
That, essentially, is the argument the Smith Mountain Lake Association bought into earlier this summer. Dr. Allan Hoffman, president of the Roanoke River Basin Association, convinced the lake's homeowners' association that Virginia Beach's withdrawal of 60 million gallons of water daily from Lake Gaston could, in times of drought, force Appalachian Power Co. to let too much water out of Smith Mountain Lake.
"Virginia Beach gets its 60 million gallons first," Hoffman told the group, "and all the rest of us have to stir around for what's left over."
But the Roanoke River is too complex, its flow too dammed and regulated, for the simple jug analogy to be accurate. Contrary to Hoffman's contention, Virginia Beach would not get "its 60 million gallons first."
In fact, Virginia Beach would get its water last. Lake Gaston is 100 miles or so downstream from Smith Mountain Lake.
One state environmental expert called Hoffman's contention "preposterous."
"That's like us here in Richmond telling Lynchburg, `Hey, you can't take any more water out of the James River because we need it here,' " he said.
Nonetheless, 10 years after Virginia Beach first proposed building the pipeline that would carry the inland water to the coastal city, the Smith Mountain Lake Association has begun lobbying boards of supervisors, congressmen and candidates for state office to oppose the pipeline.
Association President John Barr said he has been hearing complaints from some people who question the accuracy of Hoffman's statements. Barr is trying to arrange for a Virginia Beach official to speak to the group to provide some balance.
But Barr hasn't changed his mind. "With Virginia Beach coming on line," he said, "it's going to be harder and harder for us to influence the amount of water going over the Smith Mountain Dam."
Homeowners at Smith Mountain Lake and some officials from counties surrounding the lake are also concerned that Tidewater localities might someday be able to object to an economic development prospect in Western Virginia. They wonder if Virginia Beach would more or less be able to veto an industry that wanted to locate in, say, Franklin County if the industry would draw a lot of water from the river.
The counties surrounding the lake have the support of Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, who opposes the pipeline. But Western Virginia faces the same problem on the pipeline issue it faces on all issues these days - eastern and Northern Virginia have more political power.
Both gubernatorial candidates, George Allen and Mary Sue Terry, have endorsed the pipeline. Hoffman was right about at least one thing: "Water flows uphill toward money and votes."
Virginia Beach's proposal is waiting for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to complete an environmental assessment of the pipeline. North Carolina officials are convinced the 60 million gallons per day Virginia Beach wants to remove would damage their coastal wetlands.
North Carolina has vowed to oppose the pipeline in every possible venue.
The Roanoke River is considered by state environmental officials to be the most regulated - environmentalists might say "manipulated" - river in Virginia.
By the time the river opens up into Albermarle Sound in coastal North Carolina it has tumbled across six hydroelectric dams; it has received treated wastewater from towns from Montgomery County to Danville; and its water has been siphoned into cogeneration plants to cool them.
As a result of the hydroelectric dams, the state - through its regulation of the public utilities like Appalachian Power that built the dams - can control the flow of the river.
This regulation has essentially eliminated, in most places, the extremely high waters that would have occurred during flooding, and the regulation can mitigate the low flows that would occur during droughts.
"The Roanoke River is not exactly an example of what you call pristine, as far as flow regulation goes," said Ron Gregory, program manager for water quality with the Department of Environmental Quality.
"The river has indeed been harnessed and put to work for a long time compared to other rivers in the state."
Bill Tanger, president of Friends of the Roanoke River, does not see any way the Lake Gaston pipeline could affect the level of Smith Mountain Lake. But he does oppose transfering water from one river basin to another - in the Lake Gaston pipeline case from the Roanoke River basin to the James River basin.
"There are interbasin transfers happening today that I don't like," Tanger said. "I think they're wrong ethically."
But those who think the Gaston pipeline would set a precedent for more interbasin transfers already may have lost their grounds for argument. The Roanoke River basin is already the recipient of an interbasin transfer of water. Carvins Cove, Roanoke's water supply reservoir, is filled by diverting water from Catawba Creek, a James River tributary.
"Most of the natural things have been disrupted," Tanger said of the Roanoke River. "The natural flows have changed - when it flows, when it doesn't.
The irony of homeowners on Smith Mountain Lake thinking the Gaston withdrawal will effect their water level is this: the 60 million gallons Virginia Beach wants to withdraw may be water that isn't even in the river system at Smith Mountain Dam.
The Roanoke River begins as a tame stream in Montgomery County. Its tributaries drain more land as it runs south and east, and the river's flow rises monumentally.
Even in Roanoke, the river drains only 395 square miles and its flow is just 241 million gallons per day. By the time it reaches Alta Vista, however, the river's flow is five times as much as in Roanoke. At that point, the river's drainage basin covers nearly 1,800 square miles.
Falling River, Banister River, Pigg River and the Smith and Dan rivers drain into the Roanoke River basin. By the time it dumps into Lake Gaston the river's average daily flow is more than 4.5 billion gallons daily.
And the real problem for Smith Mountain Lake-based opponents of the pipeline is Virginia's riparian system for water allocation. Boiled down to its most basic element, riparian law means that someone with riverside land can remove water from a river as long as it doesn't affect people downstream.
That means lake homeowners have no legal say in water removed from the river below them, and the homeowners' fears about Virginia Beach having a say about development upstream from Lake Gaston are legitimate.
But Tanger and Explore Park Director Rupert Cutler side with North Carolinians that it is the wetlands on eastern North Carolina that are most jeopardized by the Gaston pipeline.
"What's going to happen to the chemistry of water in Albermarle Sound?" Cutler said. "It's insufficient to look at it on a parochial basis. We need to look at it on a regional ecological basis."
Del. Vic Thomas, D-Roanoke, chairman of the House of Delegates' Conservation and Natural Resources Committee, said the legacy of the Lake Gaston pipeline fight might be the development of a statewide water use policy.
The General Assembly endorsed the pipeline last year, but Thomas said Virginia should be ready the next time somebody proposes such a large transfer of water.
"I do think we have a responsibility to come up with a plan before we go letting anybody take that kind of water," Thomas said.
"In other words, they got their 60 million gallons, what about the rest of the Commonwealth?"
by CNB