The Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority has debated what to do about the Central Virginia water shortage for years. Expand the reservoirs? Build a new reservoir? Pipe water from the James River? Do nothing at all? In today’s Daily Progress, Jessica Kitchin breaks the news that the RWSA has decided to expand the Ragged Mountain reservoir and build a pipeline between it and the South Fork Rivanna reservoir. That will capture the 97% of the precipitation that flows right over the dam on the Rivanna and store it in the 133-acres-larger Ragged Mountain. No timeline is described in the article; presumably this will take many years. At $130.5M, it’ll certainly be expensive.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
-
Archive for Sideblog »
This is one of those cases where citizen input really made a difference. The South Fork Pipeline was not on the original final list of proposals that came out last year. I’m pretty sure it was Bob Gilges of White Hall who first suggested it, and the group Friends of the Moorman’s River gathered names of supporters. RWSA was very good about taking community proposals seriously.
dsewell wrote:
The impression I recieved is that the South Fork Pipeline was an ‘adaptation’ from the final proposals, a sort of ‘synthesis’ of them.
The RWSA would’ve had to spend money for mandated safety improvements on the Ragged Mountain Dam even if it wasn’t a part of the final solution. And the rub, as I always understood it, with the Ragged Mountain Dam as a stand-a-lone was it’s ability to replinish itself fast enough since it’s a ‘runoff’ dam (or lack thereof).
This way they get their pipeline (and it’s not to Scottsville), while maximizing the use of the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir as the primary source of the urban area’s water supply (without causing the extinction of some specie of snail), and get to combine safety and height upgrades to the Ragged Mountain Dam (doing so all in one budget).
It’s a win win situation all the way around.
There’s an interesting problem with dams and reservoirs that most people don’t know about, which is the matter of evaporation. If you divert water to a holding reservoir, more of it evaporates. Evenif you don’t use any more water than you used to, there’s less to go around. There was once an ambitious proposal to dam this one valley in California, but someone showed that the amount of evaporation would increase so much that the effective water supply would decrease. It’s not always win-win.
Tim McCormack wrote:
Fair point.
But I’m just happy they’re not putting that pipeline down to the James River in the name of a water supply for Charlottesville and the urban area, but which would really be just an infrastructure freebie for developers who want to start heading down South 20.