Greene County has less than five years until permit expires to build new reservoir 

Greene County is working to expand their water supply by impounding the waterway called White Run to create a new reservoir. The idea has been in the planning stages for sometime and throughout the tenure of several County Administrators.

On September 26, relatively new Administrator Cathy Schafrik had her turn to give a briefing to the four Supervisors present. 

“The idea of this is to a series, a continuing series, of what we’re planning to do with these water projects,” Schafrik said. “The main thrust of today’s presentation is going to be on the White Run water project which is in progress.” 

Schafrik said another project that is needed in the near future is a replacement of the Stanardsville water line as the existing infrastructure is around 70 years old. That’s not part of the rest of this discussion.

The Rapidan Service Authority was created 54 years ago to help create a municipal water supply for Greene County. It has now been 21 years since the last major drought in the area, a drought that prompted renewed interest in providing more storage capacity. A new water supply plan was crafted in 2008.

“Back in 2011 when the White Run property was purchased after many, many options, that shows you that this goes back more than 20 years,” Schafrik said. 

In 2017, a previous Board of Supervisors voted to proceed with the capital projects necessary to get the work going. Two years later, engineering for the new dam was completed. However, the Rapidan Service Authority refused to proceed and Greene County left that organization to go it alone.

“And right now where we are in 2023 is the entrance road for the Division 1… is already started,” Schafrik said. 

On September 26, Greene County was in drought conditions. The existing water supply depends on taking water straight from the Rapidan River with no storage. 

“We’re at the mercy of the water flow,” Schafrik said.  

Herb White with the firm W W Associates said this is the longest infrastructure project he’s been part of with over 20 years of involvement. The project has now moved into the implementation phase after all of that planning.

“What we’ve done to it is to break it up into five divisions of work,” White said. 

That first division is construction of the access road to the site and is expected to be completed early next year.

“The second division is the raw water line,” White said. “The old water plant will be converted to a pump station that we can pump water out of the river during wet periods and we need a raw water line to the reservoir so we can fill it up, so this is the fill line.” 

Permits and approvals are in place but some easements still need to be obtained. 

The third division of work is to create a new intake to replace the cables and pipes that currently perform this task. This project is ready to go to bid. 

The fourth division is the reservoir itself which has a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That expires in June of 2028. 

“That project has been designed as well,” White said. “It’s ready for bidding with the exception that we need two pieces of property.”  

The final piece of work is a new water treatment plant capable of producing 3 million gallons a day. 

“Your current plant is 1.1 [mgd] and the purpose of that larger capacity is growth project over the next 30 years,” White said. “The plant is approximately 50 years old and needs replacement even without additional growth in the county. We estimate the cost if it were to be replaced would be at roughly to $50 million to $70 million range with the possible exception that we don’t have the real estate to build it at that particular location.” 

How to pay for all of this? Right now the county has taken on about $14 million in debt to cover the cost of engineering and the roadway. That amount will be rolled into a longer-term debt package to cover the rest of the project. 

“The need now is an estimated construction of $75 million to $100 million,” said Courtney Rogers, senior vice president of Davenport & Company. “One of the things we may end up doing is actually breaking that up. We may end up doing a portion now and a portion later because of the bidding agreement.” 

Davenport said one issue is that the federal government is no longer helping to subsidize the cost to construct new infrastructure through low-interest loans. That means Greene County will have to finance the project itself over thirty years or more at today’s interest rates. 

“We’re looking at debt service that could be in the $6 million to $8 million range per year,” Rogers said. “And as you all know as we look at finances in the county, water and sewer rates for customers are probably not going to be able to carry the full cost of that debt service.” 

Alan Harrison is the director of Greene County’s Water and Sewer Department, a brand new agency created to take on the functions of the Rapidan Service Authority. He said the access road will be complete in the spring of 2024 and the water line will take about 18 months of construction once a bid is awarded.

“If we were able to advertise it early next year, we anticipate completing that in late 2025,” Harrison said. “The raw water intake and pump station, we are hoping we can bid that before the end of this calendar year and that would be finished up late 2025 with a 24-month construction period.”

Harrison said the reservoir itself could take three years to build and another year to fill. The current goal is to put that project to bid in mid-2024. 

Outgoing Supervisor Dale Herring said the project has been in the works for years. 

“I thought we would start breaking ground probably in like 2019 and there was a delay which we all went through in the last four years and we got that process resolved and now it’s under our control,” Herring said. “At this point there’s no reason for us to hold this project up and if we do, to be quite honest with you, we have no one to blame but ourselves.” 

Davis Lamb is running unopposed this year and he said he supports the project. 

The next briefing will be held in January 2024 when a new Board of Supervisors is in place. At that point there will be at least three new Supervisors.