DATE: Sunday, August 17, 1997               TAG: 9708170095

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ERIKA REIF, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   88 lines

PENINSULA OFFICIALS PUSH NEED FOR RESERVOIR

Officials attempting to lock in support for the proposed regional King William Reservoir chose sunny, green Newport News Park - quite intentionally - as the site of their news conference Saturday.

Project supporters spoke on a wooden deck overlooking the sparkling lake that is Lee Hall Reservoir - an example, they say, of a functioning reservoir that provides both beauty and recreation.

The coalition released a reassessment of Peninsula water supply needs in response to a scathing report last month by the state's largest environmental group, the Sierra Club.

The grass-roots Sierra Club had hired consultants who sliced into the city's calculations of the area's future water needs.

The rebuttal distributed Saturday was prepared by the Regional Raw Water Study Group, formed 10 years ago by the region's administrators to examine the Peninsula's future water supply needs.

Newport News Mayor Joe Frank opened the news conference against a backdrop of canoes, a boat-rental shed and a panorama of water and trees. Quacks and splashes from ducks and geese punctuated a short speech that tied the area's need for water to future recreation, wildlife habitat, tourism and jobs.

Dressed in a flower-print shirt, Frank said: ``If a company like Motorola were to come to us today, with the offer of a thousand new high-paying jobs, we'd have to turn them down because we couldn't ensure that our water supply will meet the needs of the next century. That's a real reality check for this region.''

His speech, and several others, emphasized urgency in moving forward with the project.

``The time to start providing for the future is not when the well runs dry,'' Frank said.

Project planners say the proposed 1,525-acre reservoir would guarantee enough water for the Peninsula from late in the year 2005 until 2040. The battle over whether or not the area needs a new reservoir is being fought on a field of numbers and statistics that are disputed almost as soon as they are released.

``It is not possible for the public to review the volumes of information we have provided,'' said Newport News planning and programs director David Morris.

Yet in the study group's ``Report to the Community: Drinking Water Needs Assessment,'' project proponents reiterated their belief in the area's need for a 60 percent increase in water supply over the next 50 years.

They compiled more data. Examples include how the military's water use will increase significantly, how Newport News Shipbuilding could require increased water for defense-related employment, why the Big Bethel Water Treatment Plant will only be viable until 2010, how increased water rates only temporarily discourage water use, and how use restrictions adversely affect the economics of an area. All of those are points of contention with the Sierra Club.

In addition to addressing the ongoing ``water needs'' issue, planners must obtain at least two major permits - one state and one federal - before the project can move forward.

Complicating that permit process is the possibility that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers might require Newport News Waterworks to prepare a supplement to its Final Environmental Impact Statement released in January.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggested the supplement in July after reviewing public comments. The new report could add $1 million in costs to the $9 million already spent on studies, said project manager Morris.

But the most immediate concern of project officials is that the plan has reached its 11th hour. A supplemental report could take 18 months to prepare, Morris said.

``The longer you delay, the more doubt you can cast by eating away at the support in the community,'' he said.

As for the Sierra Club's opposition, ``their issue is not the impact, it's the growth. They'd like to stop growth on the Peninsula,'' Morris said.

The club doesn't deny a broader agenda of preventing urban sprawl.

``We want the process to work,'' said Tyla Matteson, Sierra Club volunteer of Hampton. ``We want the Corps of Engineers to require Newport News Waterworks to do a supplement to the Final EIS. That way, the public will have input.''

A supplemental report would require additional public comment periods before completion.

The EPA has stated that reservoir planners should further address the issue of ``environmental justice.'' The suggestion is based on the Mattaponi Indian tribe's opposition to the project.

The Mattaponi say 300-year-old treaties protect their reservations with buffer zones that would be violated by the reservoir. The attorney general's office said in June that the buffer zones are now obsolete. But the EPA's position is based on Clinton-era federal decrees that aim to protect minority cultures.

The Corps of Engineers is expected to make a decision within the next few weeks about whether it will require reservoir planners to submit a supplemental report.

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