By Sean Tubbs
Charlottesville Tomorrow
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
At their meeting on November 24, 2009, the Board of Directors for the
Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority
adopted a schedule for replacing the dams at the
Ragged Mountain Reservoir
, heard details about the potentially lower costs of replacing a major sewer line, and received reports on the organization’s
financial health
and the
area’s water quality
.
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Bids lower than expected for Meadow Creek sewer replacement
The lowest bid for the
Meadow Creek sewer interceptor replacement
is dramatically lower than what the RWSA had estimated for construction, according to RWSA executive director Tom Frederick.
Metra Industries of Little Falls, New Jersey, submitted a bid for two sections of the project totaling $10.8 million. Frederick said that is half of what had been expected by
Greeley and Hansen
, the engineering firm that has designed the plans for the replacement.
However, Frederick recommended the RWSA Board not take action on awarding a contract until City Council decides whether to grant easements to the RWSA for property it owns along the right of way, notably in
Greenbrier Park
. Action on the easements could come at
Council’s next meeting on Monday
.
Drainage area for expanded I-64 embankment to be studied
The Board also authorized the RWSA to enter into a $317,000 contract with Volkert Incorporated to conduct a study of the Interstate 64 embankment upon which would be partially inundated by an expanded Ragged Mountain Reservoir as part of the fifty-year community water supply plan. The money will come from the RWSA’s capital improvement budget. Engineers with Volkert will also study how the reservoir can be protected from hazardous materials that might spill from the highway, protection that does not exist on roads crossing the
South Fork Rivanna Reservoir
.
Stream Watch report
 Click for larger image (Source: Stream Watch) |
John Murphy, executive director of
Stream Watch
, presented a report on the state of the water ways that make up the area’s water shed. The RWSA contributes $10,000 a year to the group’s efforts to monitor the health of area streams. Data for this report was collected between the summer of 2006 and this past spring. Over two-thirds of the monitored streams fail Virginia’s standards for aquatic life. Murphy said there has been virtually no change in the six and a half years Stream Watch has been in operation.
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