THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 2, 1995 TAG: 9505020290
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
For years the North Carolina and Virginia chapters of the Sierra Club have opposed plans to pump water from Lake Gaston to Virginia Beach, but this week an official of the environmental organization praised some features of the interstate agreement.
Molly A. Diggins, the Winston-Salem conservation chairman of the North Carolina Sierra Club, commended Jonathan Howes, the North Carolina secretary of Environment, Health and Human Resources, ``for securing provisions in the proposed settlement that emphasize water conservation.''
Howes was one of several Virginia and North Carolina officials who signed the compact that ended nearly 12 years of border squabbling over the proposal to pump 60 million gallons of water daily from Lake Gaston in Northeastern North Carolina to water-rationed Virginia Beach.
But in subsequent comments in her Sierra Club letter to Howes, Diggins said the club membership was worried about provisions that would allow Northeastern North Carolina communities to tap into the Lake Gaston pipeline.
``It is our understanding that a total of 35 million gallons a day will be available to Northeastern communities,'' Diggins told Howes. ``This includes 20 million gallons for communities south of Lake Gaston and an additional 15 million gallons for Northeastern North Carolina coastal communities.''
Part of the compact binds Virginia to improving two-lane U.S. 17 to a point where it connects with four-lane U.S. 17 in North Carolina. Virginia would also improve Virginia 168 south from Great Bridge to Currituck County, where the North Carolina Department of Transportation will soon improve N.C. 168, a primary summer traffic artery to the Outer Banks.
``Water and highway expansion are fuel for growth - growth which coastal North Carolina and especially the northern Outer Banks are unprepared to absorb,'' Diggins said.
``Using a standard rule of thumb, 15 million gallons of water per day could bring as many as 150,000 additional residents to coastal North Carolina.
``North Carolina communities should have to demonstrate their implementation of a comprehensive land use plan, including enforceable wastewater management protection strategies, in order . . . to access out-of-basin water from the Lake Gaston pipeline,'' Diggins wrote Howes.
The Sierra Club executive said she hoped that the new Lake Gaston pact would ``prove a powerful incentive'' for state legislators to support conservation agendas of several existing environmental agencies.
Diggins said she felt that the planning already put in place by the Coastal Futures Committee, established in 1994 by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., and the Governor's Coastal Agenda should be incorporated into the Lake Gaston pact.
Both coastal agencies addressed controlled development and carefully managed local resources.
``Growth in Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern coastal North Carolina make it entirely possible that future . . . administrations will support increased withdrawals'' from Lake Gaston, Diggins said. ``To ensure that all affected parties are represented in such a decision . . . the settlement should specify that any future withdrawals be subject to ratification by each state's legislature.''
In Virginia Beach, Thomas M. Leahy III, project manager for the pipeline, said the Lake Gaston settlement may eventually lead to formation of an interstate water authority that would jointly manage the Virginia and North Carolina water distribution.
``I know of at least two joint management plans that appear to work well where water supplies are shared by two adjoining states,'' Leahy said.
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON NORTH CAROLINA by CNB