THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506080181
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
The battle between Virginia Beach and Norfolk isn't about water. It's about control: control of water, of development, of the pace and scope of regionalism, of the spin of in-for-ma-tion.
Maybe the entry into the ring of state leg-is-la-tors and civic leaguers will help. Maybe the process can use some fresh faces. The same representatives of the same jurisdictions have been making the same arguments for how many years now?
But if Norfolk's gimme attitude harbingers others' reaction, the fresh-est faces will pop up all in Southside Virginia, up and down the pipeline, waving their own ransom notes.
What the process can use more than fresh faces - and raw feelings - are fresh facts.
Remind us: Why 12 1/2 years ago was the Gaston pipeline the best choice for all concerned? Why is it the Beach's best choice still? Because it's all there is? Well, that's one reason: Wise or not, in its pursuit of Gaston water, the Beach forsook all other options. It can't readily abandon Gaston now. It can abandon the North Carolina agreement, if the FERC permit comes through as expected - and if Carolina hasn't the nerve to resurrect in court the specious objections it yielded in the agreement.
There's no shortage, however, of nerve. That sound you hear in Virginia Beach these days is grass-roots support growing for spending hundreds of millions, if hundreds of millions must be spent, getting independent of selfish water suppliers to the Beach's west and south.
Is that possible? During the Norfolk-Beach negotiations two years ago, staff ranked the options in terms of reliability, expense and time: The ``Lake Gaston Project with Norfolk Treat-ment'' was the best option. An ``independent Lake Gaston Project'' was next-best, but maybe impossible to implement. ``Seawater Desalting with Norfolk Surplus'' came next, then seawater desalting by itself. And last with the least maximum yield: ``Wastewater Reuse.''
Do Norfolk's demands, South-side's echo and high-tech advances change these rankings?
As much as fresh facts, the proc-ess needs fresh ideas. The General Assembly seems fresh out: The watchword there is what if, as in: What if Danville needed Gaston water to land a Motorola but Carolina had first dibs?
The focus ought to be what is: 420,000 Virginians whose search for a reliable, reasonable source of water signals a larger need: for a state or regional authority that controls water not as something one locality (Norfolk) may sell or another (Southside) must sacrifice but a public resource whose benefits ripple state-wide. by CNB