If a lot of people are going to be living in the same space, you need enough resources to support that population. In the Thomas Jefferson Planning District, there are three different entities charged with storing, treating, and distributing clean drinking water for urban areas.
A new update to Virginia code now requires those three to come up with a unified plan because the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality considers them all be in the same river basin.
“We are largely a part of the Middle James 1 Regional Planning Unit (RPU), which includes Charlottesville, Albemarle, Green, Fluvanna, Louisa and Buckingham counties,” said Ruth Emerick, chief operating officer of the TJPDC. “Nelson is in a different RPU and the kickoff meeting with DEQ was held about a month ago.”
Emerick said the process is still unfolding but the TJPDC Board of Commissioners were asked to adopt a resolution officially appointing the entity as the one responsible for putting together the plan.
“The final regional water supply plan is not required to be completed and submitted to DEQ until 2029,” Emerick said. “So there’s a good amount of time and I imagine there will be a number of things that change.”
Emerick said one piece of good news is that a lot of the required data is in existing plans.
- Greene County Regional Water Supply Plan website
- Fluvanna County and Louisa County are members of the James River Water Authority and their materials can be seen here
- Albemarle and Charlottesville participate in the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Community Water Supply Plan can be viewed here
“It’s going to be a lot of just coordinating and making sure that everyone’s on the same page and all the data is in the same place and then potentially working on strategies to secure our water supply for the future,” Emerick said.
Emerick delivered the same presentation to Charlottesville City Council on May 5. Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston sits on the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority Board of Directors and said details are still unknown about whether any of the three will have to work together to plan and finance future infrastructure.
“We may plan for our water per these regions that have been laid out, but whether or not we actually have cross connects or we’re or we’re supplementing the water from Greene County, all of those things are much further down the line,” Pinkston said.
City Councilor Michael Payne said he was concerned that this planning effort might result in urban communities subsidizing surrounding ones.
‘We know that some of these surrounding counties have made a conscious policy decision to not fund basic water infrastructure,” Payne said.
In reality, Greene County’s draft budget for FY2026 includes $73 million to move forward creation of a new waterway to be used for long-term storage.
“The White Run Reservoir has a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that expires in June 2028,” said Greene County Administrator Cathy Schafrik in the introduction to the FY2026 budget. “It is imperative that we pursue and achieve completion of this project in a timely and cost-effective manner.”
The Greene Board of Supervisors are set to adopt their budget on May 13.
Jennifer Whitaker is the director of engineering and maintenance for the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority. She said there was initial uncertainty about the new process, but she and others were reassured when briefed on the reason to plan regionally.
“There are large pieces of the Commonwealth that weren’t included in any regional plan,” Whitaker said. “And so when you look at it from a statewide perspective, you were consistently seeing underestimation of what the true demand during a drought was for the entire Commonwealth.”
Whitaker said she does not think this will lead to forcing different localities to work together. A kickoff meeting with stakeholders is expected to take place some time in June.
Before you go: This story originally went out in the May 7, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. To learn how to support the work, please visit this section of this website.
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