The
Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority
(RWSA) announced today that it has received a $20,000 grant from the
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
to develop detailed water supply plans for Crozet and Scottsville. The RWSA’s previous work to approve an
urban community water supply plan
, which includes a new dam at Ragged Mountain Reservoir and its connection by a new pipeline to the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir, already meets the Virginia requirements that all localities have long-range water supply plans by the year 2011. Thus, RWSA will focus its work under this grant between now and June 2007 on Crozet and Scottsville’s water supplies.
“We are very pleased to be recognized by DEQ as worthy of this grant through a competitive application process,” stated Mr. Tom Frederick, Executive Director of the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority. “We look forward to extending the expertise we have developed in water supply planning for the greater Charlottesville area to prepare plans for Scottsville and Crozet, and we look forward to a constructive dialogue with the leaders and citizens of these communities.”
Since RWSA’s 2004 assessment of the Crozet water supply, the County of Albemarle has doubled the theoretical long-range population estimate from 12,000 to 24,000 people for this
designated growth area
. Prior to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors’ acceptance of those population estimates in January 2006, RWSA had been operating under the assumption that Crozet’s build-out population would be 12,000 people by 2024, and that it would remain at the population through 2055.
RWSA has not previously made water supply demand projections based on a population of 24,000 people and it would be very helpful if this grant resulted in a long-range plan for Crozet that identified the safe yield for the Beaver Creek Reservoir under this scenario.
Brian Wheeler
