RWSA reports agency still on track to receive $9 million of $10 million in federal grants

The executive branch under President Donald Trump has upended a system where the federal government helps contribute to infrastructure projects across the United States.

The Board of Directors of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority learned on April 22 that the organization will have to find other funding for some projects.

“We’ve celebrated that we had 10 million in grants awarded,” said Bill Mawyer, the RWSA’s executive director. “We haven’t gotten all those dollars yet.”

Mawyer did say that the Federal Emergency Management Agency recently announced RWSA will receive $8,500 to help cover the cost of temporary repairs to shore up an embankment at Stillhouse Mountain damaged during Hurricane Helene. The agency has applied for $350,000 in funds for a permanent solution there as well as to fix a pipeline that crosses the Mechums River.

A $1 million federal grant would have gone to cover part of the cost of installing a water filtration project in Crozet. The project would have upgraded the granular activated carbon system and had been funded through the Virginia Department of Health’s Emerging Contaminants that itself had been funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The project is proceeding anyway.

“So out of the $7.2 million that we had been awarded, we still have $6.2 million,” Mawyer said. “So we’re moving forward with that project and expect to get it out to bid as soon as VDH finishes its review of our design plans.”

The RWSA had applied for $50 million through the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program to help cover the cost of the planned waterline between the Ragged Mountain and South Fork Rivanna reservoirs. That entire program was canceled which means ratepayers will contribute more of the cost of the $117 million project. Construction is scheduled to begin in ten months.

Mawyer did have good news about one project.

“Yesterday we were notified that on the Beaver Creek dam project that $1 million that had been frozen was now unfrozen,” Mawyer said. “I think the court said they had to unfreeze those dollars. And so we are back. That’s the design funding on Beaver Creek and we plan to submit a $20 million grant application in July for that.”

Mawyer also provided an update on legislation that passed the General Assembly.

• HB2749 and SB1408 will require waterworks to report anomalies or incidents of negligence to the Virginia Department of Health within two hours. This legislation was introduced after waterworks in the City of Richmond had a catastrophic failure earlier this year. The legislation had said six hours, and Governor Youngkin amended it to two hours.
• The RWSA reviews development proposals in Albemarle and Charlottesville and HB2660 will require them to complete those reviews much faster.
• Two bills related to microplastics in water failed. HB1618 would have required the Commissioner of Health to study their presence in public drinking water, but was left in the House Rules Committee.
• SB1319 would have required the Department of Environment Quality to monitor discharges of industrial wastewater for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). This passed the Senate unanimously and the House on a 69 to 27 vote. In his veto statement, Youngkin said the legislation was not necessary and premature because a monitoring framework set up in the 2024 General Assembly was still getting up to speed.

Mawyer also reported on the inaugural meeting of the Middle James #1 Regional Planning Unit. Recent legislation requires the Department of Environmental Quality to create regional water supply plans to be created.

“We are with Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene and Louisa and Charlottesville and other towns and authorities in our area,” Mawyer said. “I think the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is going to facilitate and run that committee to help put the plan together.”

The next committee meeting will be in May.

Before you go: This story originally went out in the April 23 edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter. This is a production of a Town Crier, as opposed to Town Criers, so it takes a bit to get to everything. If you want to increase the chance of plurality, support the info!