Old deals mean Suffolk buys water from own sources

SUFFOLK

Phillip Bradshaw came up dry the first time he went looking for water.

The elected official in Isle of Wight County started scouring land records 15 years ago, hoping to find a new source of drinking water for Western Tidewater. The deeds proved what many there and in nearby Suffolk already knew: There wasn't much left to buy.

"Unfortunately, Norfolk did a good job of it back in the '30s," Bradshaw said.

Earlier this month, Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim announced a 40-year deal to sell some of its surplus water to Suffolk and Isle of Wight. Other, much older deals mean a lot of that water will come from within Suffolk's and Isle of Wight's own boundaries.

The new arrangement - a product of years of negotiations that its participants praised as regionalism at its best - is the latest milestone in a long history of deals and disputes over one of Western Tidewater's most valuable resources.

John Carlock, deputy executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, has watched the action for 35 years.

"It has been something that has both brought people together and divided them, forever," he said.

Suffolk lost its shot at controlling much of its own surface water long before it became the city it is today.

Norfolk and Portsmouth began buying land in the marshy, upper reaches of the Nansemond River in the early 1900s, decades before Suffolk extended its borders beyond that area in 1974 by merging with Nansemond County.

The two fast-growing urban cities built dams, creating huge reservoirs to their west. Portsmouth even built a pumping station in downtown Suffolk.

Norfolk expanded its water supply again in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the Western Branch Reservoir. At more than 1,200 acres, the sprawling body of water connects with Lake Prince, which the city also owns.

Norfolk also benefited from pumping stations on the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers that it got through deals with the federal government. Individual landowners sold much of the rest of the land that Norfolk and Portsmouth accumulated.

"Suffolk has always felt bad about what our forefathers did," said Joe Barlow, a Suffolk city councilman and member of the Western Tidewater Water Authority. But, he added, you can't fault Norfolk and Portsmouth for having foresight.

"That was a smart business move on their part," he said.

It also was ultimately a good thing for the rest of South Hampton Roads, Carlock said. Norfolk and Portsmouth established their water supplies when regulations over such things were much less strict, he said.

"If they had not done it, I think in today's environment it would have been much more difficult," he said.

That doesn't mean everyone always worked together.

A drought in 1980 showed how contentious things could get. Suffolk and Norfolk sparred over the drilling of emergency wells in a yearlong dispute that featured the Navy, Virginia Beach, lawsuits and a plea by the governor.

Suffolk's search for long-term water supplies became a constant endeavor as the city grew.

Suffolk built its supply incrementally through the '80s and '90s, in part with wells. But each expansion didn't add much time, Public Utilities Director Al Moor said.

In 1998 Suffolk joined Isle of Wight County to form the Western Tidewater Water Authority and began to explore their options together.

Building a reservoir would likely be too expensive, if not impossible, because of legal challenges, Moor said. Similar concerns saddled the idea of a pipeline to the west. The 76-mile Lake Gaston conduit that supplies Virginia Beach took 15 years to deliver water after the Beach City C ouncil voted for it in 1982.

Complicating matters was the state's growing reluctance to allow cities to drill new wells.

In 2005, the Department of Environmental Quality approved a new groundwater permit for Suffolk and Isle of Wight County. That promised them an additional 4.6 million gallons of water a day, boosting the authority's overall capacity by about 60 percent. The extra supply was projected to get Suffolk to about 2015 before development would run up against capacity.

Moor predicted it would be one of the last large permits issued in the region.

With its options limited, the Western Tidewater Water Authority turned to Norfolk. The two sides hammered out a deal over two to three years, sometimes meeting every month, said Mark Popovich, an assistant county attorney in Isle of Wight County.

AquaLaw, a firm in Richmond, represented the authority while Moor served as its "technical guy," Popovich said. The final agreement resulted in a document of about 60 pages, he said.

"We were playing the 'what-ifs,' " Popovich said. "What if we have a severe drought and the amount of water is significantly reduced? How do we deal with those issues?"

The deal still must be approved by all the localities. It will give the Western Tidewater Water Authority as much as 15 million gallons of water a day in its later years. The price will grow with the amount of water that Norfolk sends, to as much as $6 million a year.

Fraim said the deal will not stress Norfolk's water supplies even in a drought. The water for Suffolk and Isle of Wight will come from his city's hefty surplus, so it won't come from any one source.

Norfolk also treats Virginia Beach's water, which is pumped into the Western Branch Reservoir in Suffolk. Bill Macali, deputy city attorney in Virginia Beach, said Norfolk's new commitment to Suffolk and Isle of Wight won't threaten the Beach's supply.

Meanwhile, Suffolk and Isle of Wight have more work to do. Design and construction of a five -mile pipeline is expected to take until 2014.

But at least they can quit sweating over water - for now. "This is the long-term answer," Moor said.

Pilot researcher Jakon Hayes contributed to this report.

Dave Forster, (757) 222-5563, dave.forster@pilotonline.com