Water, sewage worries focus James City planning commissioners' growth concerns
It's Aug. 7. Could concerns about water supply sink two large housing developments coming up for approval this fall? County plan estimates 40,000 new homes by 2045.
Correction — we misidentified the speaker in paragraph 7 as Passero, it was Polster.
Add water supply worries to the list of hurdles two developers must clear this fall to get more than 1,700 homes approved by James City County, if the intense discussion at the county planning commission Wednesday night is indicative.
Four of the seven planning commissioners spent half an hour of their meeting worrying about the recent news that the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality may cut down the county’s groundwater allowance next year. County supervisors heard that last week, at the same time the regional wastewater agency will have to spend $43 million to $70 million to prevent sewage from contaminating water supplies during heavy rainstorms.
“It’s madness,” said at-large planning commissioner Jack Haldeman. He said the water and stormwater issues were just part of the cumulative impact of continued county growth, which he said would impact schools, traffic and the cost of government.
The planning commission voted earlier this year to recommend the board of supervisors approve development of Cardinal Ridge, a mixed-use community planned on surplus Eastern State Hospital land that would include 1,006 homes. Supervisors are scheduled to vote on that application next month. Commissioners deadlocked 3-3 on a recommendation for another mixed-use development in Croaker, The Bluffs at Kiskiack, that would include 704 homes. It comes up for a vote in October.
Haldeman, who voted against both projects, urged supervisors and county residents to read the recently published report from the Department of Environmental Quality casting doubts on the area’s water supply, which we have included below. He said it “shows the results of several generations of irresponsible, rapacious development with no consideration whatsoever to the environment, and that includes James City County.”
Jamestown commission member Frank Polster noted the county’s comprehensive plan predicts James City’s population is projected to grow from 81,000 to 125,000 in 20 years.
“That is going to have an impact,” Polster said. “It may not be in the schools but it will on the environment, it will be on the traffic, and it will be on the cost of government...as a planning commission, one of your jobs is to talk about what we want the future to look like, and look at these impacts.”
Stonehouse member Jay Everson threw in a more optimistic note, saying solutions could be found for the water problem.
James City County’s current permit allows it to draw 8.5 million gallons of groundwater a day, but it is only using about 5.5 million gallons a day, he said.
“To think that the end of the world for water is going to come –we will have a solution,” Everson said.
He said the county could purchase more water from Newport News waterworks, adding that the county’s landscaping ordinances require tree buffers that screen housing developments from site, helping it preserve a rural nature. He also said projections from the Williamsburg-James City County schools show attendance continuing to decline for the next decade.
Douglas Powell, the general manager of the James City County Service Authority that provides water and sewer services, told Williamsburg Watch that water from Newport News is treated with different chemicals from county groundwater, so the county would have to switch its treatment process or add some extra pipelines to use both water supplies.
The DEQ report said it was too early to tell whether a project by the Hampton Roads Sanitation District would reliably restore enough water to the Potomac Aquifer used for groundwater east of I-95. The program, known as SWIFT, is designed to inject up to 100 million gallons of purified wastewater back into the aquifer every day.
Haldeman and Polster disagreed with Everson that growth could continue without harm, even if the schools were not overcrowded, because of impact on traffic and the environment.
Powhatan Member Vincent Passero agreed with Everson that there was a solution to the water problem, but said it requires quick action.
“Twenty years is not a long time,” Passero said. “We need to start worrying about this water issue now and start building that infrastructure. If you wait till the point where you have to have it, you’re not going to have it.” (see short story about Passero’s regional solution later on in this newsletter.
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