THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506020007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Norfolk needs revenue, no question. But gouging Virginia Beach on water, essential to the economic pros-perity of all South Hampton Roads, is no way to get it.
The price Norfolk has put on its consent not to peddle water to the Peninsula - consent that would facilitate the flow of water from Lake Gaston to Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and other Norfolk neighbors - is exorbitant. Its initial demand, amounting to more than $610 million over 32 years, may reflect Norfolk's need for cash. It does not reflect reality, as the Beach City Council reiterated Wednesday in rejecting Norfolk's second outrageous offer. Not just the Gaston agreement between Virginia Beach and North Carolina, which hinges on Norfolk's consent, limits the market for Norfolk's water. Prac-ti-cal-i-ties do.
Studies show that in the near future South Hampton Roads will need not only water piped from Gaston but all available water within this region's borders. So North Carolina's insistence that Southeast Virginia tap into nearby water supplies before tapping into the Gaston water the two states share makes sense.
Studies show that the Peninsula's pursuit of more reliable and more readily tapped water sources than Norfolk's makes sense, too. So does Carolina's consent, at the request of Norfolk via Virginia Beach before the Gaston agreement was signed, to include Northeastern North Carolina in Norfolk's water sales area. The makings of a genuinely regional water system exist. The interstate compact foresees such a system. Norfolk, alone, does not.
So far, Norfolk officials adamantly draw the line of regionalism at Norfolk's water. On tourism, economic development, public housing, schools, Norfolk's City Hall professes eagerness to share, but not on so fundamental a resource as water. So narrow a view of regionalism is guaranteed to choke potential regional partners and to revive the grudges and grievances of decades. Norfolk resents what it views as the Beach's attempts to lure commerce and culture away, to kill light rail, to snub a regional jail. But the Beach, and the rest of the region, have their past grievances with Norfolk, the lack of a regional airport topping the list.
Norfolk also has an egocentric vision of the region's future that cramps the neighbors' style, and economic prospects: They haven't signed off on Norfolk's claim to be the financial, commercial, cultural hub of South Hampton Roads. They haven't named Norfolk the arbiter of the roles left to the rest. And they want water to work its ripple effect across the region's economy, not remain a club in Norfolk's hands. If they have to spend big bucks, residents of Virginia Beach and the rest of the region would rather spend them cutting Norfolk out than forever cutting deals at crisis prices.
Virginia Beach has offered some compensation for Norfolk's limiting its water market. The threads are there for a financial deal beneficial all around - and equal to the extremely high stakes all around. But all the local players must resume the reasonable and regional cooperation that Norfolk and the Beach celebrated in water negotiations just two years ago. It's Norfolk's inflated demand for compensation that has brought South Hampton Roads' two major players to this impasse. It's up to Norfolk to end it.
KEYWORDS: LAKE GASTON PIPELINE by CNB