Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 7, 1995 TAG: 9507070058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RALEIGH, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Virginia Beach officials who have been seeking to build the 76-mile pipeline for more than a decade also said politics was to blame for the failure of a negotiated settlement between the city and North Carolina.
Hunt still held out hope that a court fight could be avoided ``should Virginia decide to put politics aside and take constructive action.''
However, Virginia Beach officials, who said they were ``disappointed'' by Hunt's announcement, appeared resigned to more litigation, even as they vowed that another court fight would not slow the project's timetable.
``It may well be that they can sue, but that doesn't mean they can get an injunction to stop construction,'' said Louis R. Jones, a City Council member who led Virginia Beach's negotiating team in the effort to reach a compromise with North Carolina.
North Carolina and Virginia have been battling for 12 years over a proposal to pipe water from Lake Gaston, which straddles the Virginia-North Carolina border, to Virginia Beach. The lake impounds water from the Roanoke River.
North Carolina has filed a dozen legal actions over the years, including one in 1994 against U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who ruled that the pipeline would not harm North Carolina's coastal zone.
That lawsuit was handed to a mediator with instructions to reach a settlement. The settlement was signed April 28, but both state legislatures had to ratify it.
The Virginia General Assembly adjourned its 1995 regular session before the settlement was reached, and Gov. George Allen refused to call a three-day special session when legislative leaders would not agree to a time limit.
Virginia Beach, with 400,000 residents, wants Lake Gaston water because it is growing faster than its water supply, which it buys from Norfolk.
``The city of Virginia Beach will now turn to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval of its Lake Gaston project,'' the city said in a statement.
FERC agreed to withhold until today an environmental impact statement that is believed to be favorable to the project.
Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf said FERC's approval is needed by July 26 for the city to keep its construction timetable, which calls for completion of the pipeline by April 1998.
Political leaders around the lake in both states and in the river's watershed upstream have complained about the proposed settlement, which would limit Virginia's total withdrawal to 60 million gallons a day.
It also would allow North Carolina communities to withdraw up to 35 million gallons. Virginia Beach would pay for the water and for efforts to control hydrilla, a weed that grows in Lake Gaston.
Virginia also would be required to improve highway access to northeastern North Carolina.
``The compact wasn't perfect, but it would have permanently protected the Roanoke River basin and the people of North Carolina,'' Hunt said. ``Virginia's failure to act has left us no alternative but to go back to court. ... We intend to fight.''
Hunt directed the state's attorney general to pursue every legal option to protect North Carolina water, including returning the case to federal court.
Virginia Beach City Attorney Leslie L. Lilley said another round of court battles could take two to five years to conclude.
Rep. L.F. Payne, a Virginia Democrat whose 5th District is mostly opposed to the pipeline, said the settlement was flawed from the outset because it was negotiated secretly and without input from people who live along the Roanoke River basin.
But Oberndorf blamed the leadership in the House of Delegates for the settlement's failure. She said a House committee appointed by Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, to take up the issue ``was not friendly to the purpose of resolving'' the conflict.
Moss' home city had supported the pipeline project for years but objected to a restriction in the settlement that banned it from selling its surplus water outside the immediate region.
But the chairman of the House committee, Del. Franklin Hall, D-Richmond, said that his panel has solved two of the three major points of contention about the pipeline agreement and might have solved the third - Southside's lack of involvement - if it had been given more time.
Hall said he had taken it upon himself to stand up for the interests of Southside and Southwest Virginia "because I don't have a dog in this fight, and also because of the precedent it would set."
Hall said it was now up to Allen to break the impasse. "The ball truly is in the governor's court," Hall said. He noted that Allen has said he favors the agreement. "If he feels this strongly, he should call us [into session] tomorrow."
Staff writer Dwayne Yancey contributed to this report.
by CNB