THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 9, 1995 TAG: 9507080266
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
By now, every spinmeister worth the price of his tie has taken a stab at what and who killed Gaston Pipeline Agreements Nos. 1 and 2. Herewith, assorted ironies, fudges and facts to add perspective to some of the yarns spun.
They are gleaned from public information and from several sources in the negotiations, each of them afflicted by Gaston-enteritis. That's the local strain of a national epidemic among politicians; i.e., an inability to digest the necessity not only of doing the public's business but of being seen doing the public's busi-ness.
Irony No. 1: The ``surplus'' water Norfolk sells comes from an interbasin transfer that intrudes farther and draws Carolina water levels down much farther than Virginia Beach's draw from Lake Gaston ever will.
Norfolk's withdrawal of water from the Nottoway and Blackwater rivers drops the flow of North Carolina's Chowan River as much as 60 percent. Plug that source, and Norfolk loses the water weight it throws around the region.
Irony No. 2: Norfolk wanted the Beach to ensure that Carolina couldn't use the Nottoway/Blackwater/Chowan link to put Norfolk through the federal, judicial and financial hoops through which North Car-o-li-na, Southside and Norfolk have forced forcing Virginia Beach.
During the negotiations of both Gaston 1 and Gaston 2, Norfolk demanded that North Carolina promise never to challenge Norfolk's interbasin with-draw-als.
At Norfolk's request, Virginia Beach got that promise into Gaston 1 before that agreement was even signed. (So much for Norfolk's claim not to know until the last minute what Gaston 1 contained.)
As for Gaston 2, a pact negotiated by North Carolina, Virginia Beach and Governor Allen's office that asked nothing of the city of Norfolk or its representatives, it is whispered to have crumbled abruptly Wednesday after a representative of Norfolk demanded of both Governors Allen and Hunt that Carolina reiterate its promise in Gaston 2.
Note that not just Allen balked at that, though reportedly he agreed to support the reiteration in an interstate compact drawn up in next winter's regular session. In his press release Thursday, Governor Hunt makes a promise all right: that Carolina will ``review'' every Virginia water withdrawal that might ripple into Carolina, ``including the Not-to-way, Blackwater and Chowan rivers.''
Fudge No. 1: Governor Allen's refusal to call a special session killed agreement on Gaston.
Republicans may have been accomplices in the demise of Gaston 1, witting or not. But the hit squad on agreement was the House of Delegates' Democratic leadership, Norfolk's Tom Moss still presiding despite a lingering challenge for the post from House minority leader Dickie Cranwell.
The limits the governor set - from the start, with the Beach's support - would have hobbled Dem-o-crats who could easily pass up the agree-ment but wouldn't pass up a session in which they could embarrass the governor and get a head start on November. But the fact is, the governor can infringe squat: He can request legislators' restraint but he cannot control what legislators do or don't do once in session.
Fact is, the Democratic leadership - eight weeks, several public hearings, unnumbered legislative committee meetings after the governor's request, six seats from losing the leadership of the House and the Senate and 17 weeks from elections - decided that politics was more important than Gaston water.
Cranwell represents a district in the Roanoke River Basin, rife with pipeline opposition. Moss represents Norfolk, which has two things going for it: his honchoship in the House and, absent Gaston, the largest water surplus in the neighborhood, thanks to that interbasin transfer.
Could Moss, would Cranwell arrange to blame Allen for Gaston's fizzle, parlay that blame into enough Republican defeats to keep the Democratic majority in the assembly and, in January's regular session, forge an agreement that commands the Beach to pay big bucks to Southside and buy Norfolk's water before Gaston's, and steals Republicans' thunder?
Stay tuned . . . for the governor's veto. Gaston water doesn't belong to Southside, the Beach's draw is too small to affect Southside's future use of the 99 percent of the flow that's left, and its demand for any more than the 5(CT)/1,000 gallons the Beach had agreed to pay is waterway robbery.
If Republicans are smart, stay tuned as well for a campaign that includes the facts on the Gaston pipeline and this line, region- and statewide:
If you envy Virginia Beach's ordeal, if you think any locality in this water-rich state should pay tribute to another before it can wash its cars, return a Democratic majority to the General Assembly. If you want a regional or statewide water authority, the only long-term route to fair play on so fundamental a resource, vote Republican. MEMO: Beth Barber is editorial-page editor of The Beacon.
by CNB