Water supply helped Virginia Beach to flourish

Seventy-six miles from its start at Lake Gaston, the pipeline empties in Isle of Wight County. (JOY LEWIS | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT)

By Marc Davis
The Virginian-Pilot

VIRGINIA BEACH

Your shower starts here.

It's a quiet lake 90 miles to the west. Vacationers rent cottages here. The fishing is great.

But that big house on the far shore of Lake Gaston isn't a house; it's a pump station. And far below the lake's surface, there are vents sucking water into a long pipe heading east.

Ten years ago this week, the Lake Gaston pipeline went into business.

Today, the 76-mile concrete-and-steel conduit supplies every drop of water that Virginia Beach needs, with millions of gallons a day to spare.

That water has allowed the city to grow and prosper. According to most experts, concerns about the pipeline's effects on wildlife and the localities through which it passed have proved unfounded.

The pipe dream began 25 years ago this month. Virginia Beach was in a nasty water war. Norfolk had plenty to spare; Virginia Beach wanted to buy it without worrying that its neighbor would cut off the flow. The two sides got snippy.

And so on Nov. 15, 1982, the Virginia Beach City Council voted to find its own water.

The plan was ambitious and expensive. Virginia Beach decided to build a pipeline to Lake Gaston.

This building on a tributary looks like a vacation home, but it really is a pumping station. joy lewis|the virginian-pilot

The city expected a fight and got it. Virginia Beach and North Carolina battled in court for 15 years. Every time the city won a victory, another challenge spra ng up. It dragged on seemingly forever, and the legal expenses alone cost Virginia Beach $11 million.

W hen the smoke cleared, Virginia Beach had its water supply, at a cost of $150 million.

Before the pipeline was built, North Carolina predicted that it would create an ecological disaster. That hasn't happened.

Neighbors on the lake feared that the huge pump station would be an eyesore and would ruin boating there. That never happened, either.

By nearly all accounts, the pipeline is a huge success. Environmental agencies in both states say it has had no effect on the lake or the Roanoke River, which runs through it. And some neighbors who had opposed the pipeline say it hasn't been so bad.

"I haven't seen any real negative impact on the lake," said Robert H. Conner, who represents the lake area on the Board of Supervisors in Brunswick County, Va. "Virginia Beach has been a good neighbor."

To be sure, bad feelings linger. The Roanoke River Basin Association, which vehemently fought the pipeline, is still unhappy. The recent drought did not help. While the lake's level didn't fluctuate much, property owners along the lake were angry that they might suffer mandatory water restrictions while Virginia Beach would not.

The Lake Gaston pipeline begins in a pump station in Brunswick County. joy lewis|the virginian-pilot

Still, Virginia Beach leaders, without exception, consider Lake Gaston the biggest and best accomplishment in city history.

"For any city to survive, they have to have a guaranteed water source," said Mayor Meyera Oberndorf, who was on the City Council when it approved the pipeline. "Lake Gaston breathed new life into the city of Virginia Beach."

The pipeline is perhaps the most ambitious Virginia Beach city project, but for all its celebrity, it's almost impossible to see with your own eyes.

The camouflage is masterful.

The Lake Gaston pump station is on a tributary called Pea Hill Creek in Brunswick County. It's off a private road with a no-trespassing sign, near the tiny town of Valentines. You can skip a stone on the lake and almost hit North Carolina.

The intake vents, which suck up 60 million gallons a day, are under water and don't even create ripples on the surface.

To passing boats, the pump station looks like a huge house. It has two chimneys, sliding glass doors, a large wooden deck and landscaping.

Some folks mistake it for a church. It is almost entirely silent outside despite the roaring pumps inside what is essentially an industrial building.

"It does not look that bad," said Bernard L. Jones Sr., chairman of the Brunswick County Board of Supervisors. "You wouldn't know it was a pump station."

Along the pipeline route, the pipe itself is generally buried four or five feet underground, much of it under old railroad beds. The pipe comes above ground only for six river crossings.

One is at the Nottoway River in Southampton Country, where farmer Bruce Phillips owns about 1,700 acres split by the pipeline.

He opposed the pipeline 10 years ago. Now he mows the tall weeds that grow over it.

It is a very rural area, with dense forest and hunting along part of the pipeline's path. Phillips has adjusted to its presence. When unexpected visitors show up along the pipeline, he pulls in behind them in his pickup, making sure they belong there.

"This is the most rural part of the county," Phillips said. "We farm right up to the edge. I try to be a good neighbor. As far as I'm concerned," he motioned toward a Beach official, "we're good neighbors."

Even at the outfall, the Lake Gaston pipeline is hard to spot.

The end of the conduit is not marked. It is a small concrete structure off a rural road, a mile or two from Windsor. The only clue that this might be something important is the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Signs warn: "No trespassing. No hunting."

Water roars out of the pipe into a concrete culvert. The sound is almost deafening.

From here, the water flows into a creek, which leads to Lake Prince, which is part of Norfolk's reservoir system. It makes its way to Norfolk's water treatment plant near Lake Taylor High School, then through smaller pipes to kitchens, bathrooms and backyard hoses in Virginia Beach.

Some folks thought it would never happen.

Louis Jones said he never had doubts.

He was the Virginia Beach mayor in 1982, when the City Council approved the pipeline. He's still on the council today.

"It was not a difficult decision," he said. The two alternatives - building a lake near Petersburg or building a reservoir in the Assamoosick Swamp in Southampton County - were more expensive and less reliable.

Still, the 15-year battle was longer and more expensive than anyone expected. Every election, challengers attacked council members on the issue. The council held firm.

In fact, Jones said, Lake Gaston unified council members who disagreed on almost everything else.

Tom Leahy, the city's public utilities director, said the City Council deserves a lot of credit for staying the course. "I was impressed the council held together, even when times got tough," he said.

Councilwoman Reba McClanan, who often votes against city projects, voted yes on Lake Gaston and supported it to the end. "It's probably the greatest and most important thing the city has done," she said recently.

Perhaps the gutsiest move by Virginia Beach was starting to build the pipeline while legal challenges were still pending in court. At one point, the city was spending $1 million a week just manufacturing the pipe sections - before there was a final court ruling.

"We always figured," Leahy said, "once we built it, no one was going to make us un build it, and no one was going to tell us we couldn't use it."

Now, officials have a hard time imagining what the city would have done without Lake Gaston.

Construction work on the Lake Gaston Pipeline in Southampton County. Here a worker is sealing joints of the pipes. Virginian-pilot file photo

Virginia Beach, with nearly twice the population of Norfolk, had outgrown Norfolk's water system. Because of the lack of a reliable water supply, Virginia Beach had declared a moratorium on most new new homes and businesses in 1992. The city's economic growth stopped dead in its tracks.

The pipeline allowed the moratorium to be lifted, and growth returned.

Without Lake Gaston, Town Center probably would not exist, city officials say. Some big new hotels at the Oceanfront probably wouldn't have been built. Neither would many new subdivisions. It's possible the new convention center would not have been constructed.

Since the pipeline opened, about 14,000 new homes and businesses have hooked up to the city water system. That might not have happened without Lake Gaston.

"Who is going to invest in a city or region that's water-poor?" asked Bob Scott, the city's former planning director, now retired. "You really have to question whether we would have a Town Center today. I don't see how we could have developed like that."

Today, the pipeline pumps up to 60 million gallons a day, depending on demand.

Virginia Beach uses 40 million gallons. Chesapeake is entitled to 10 million gallons but doesn't need it yet and probably won't for eight to 10 years, said Jim Walski, the city's public utilities director. Other localities that initially were supposed to get water from the pipeline later dropped out.

That means 20 million gallons a day - the excess after Virginia Beach takes its water - is replenishing Norfolk's reservoirs.

And the future? It will be a long time before Virginia Beach has to think about it.

Physically, "the life of the pipeline itself is probably indefinite," Leahy said. "We might have to reline it after 50 or 100 years."

Virginia Beach expects the Lake Gaston pipeline to satisfy the city's thirst for at least the next 20 to 30 years.

"Lake Gaston was the most important project we have completed during my time on the council," Jones said.

Added Oberndorf, "It was, thank God, a success."

Marc Davis, (757) 222-5131, marc.davis@pilotonline.com