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Appalachia facing water emergency

 

APPALACHIA — Today is a water emergency “D-Day” as Appalachia officials invade the Powell River to help liberate the town’s reservoir from the clutches of a drought.

The town’s mountaintop impoundment at the head of Ben’s Branch was to be at or just below a 60-day supply by today, the first trigger of the town’s water emergency policy, and that opens the bureaucratic floodgates to tap the river as a backup water supply.

“We can’t put a shovel in the ground so to speak until we officially declare an emergency,” Town Manager Fred A. Luntsford Jr. said Tuesday.

Town officials already figured Oct. 31 would meet the 60-day supply criteria, “so tomorrow is D-Day,” Luntsford said.

Under the initial stage of a formally declared water emergency, Luntsford said residential customers who use more than 4,000 gallons per month will be charged an additional $5 per 1,000 gallons over the 4,000-gallon limit, and businesses will be required to cut back to 80 percent of their consumption based on the average use on the previous two months of water bills.

The town’s emergency water use plan triggers even more restrictive consumption edicts at 30-day and 15-day supply levels, if and when that should happen. Tapping the Powell River, however, may ensure the critical-level restrictions won’t need to be implemented.

Preparations are under way to pump water from the Powell River to at least maintain a decent supply in the reservoir, if not make incremental water level gains. Appalachia Waterworks Supervisor Jackie Pitts said the reservoir was 13.7 feet below the spillway on Monday, or roughly 35 million gallons.

Luntsford said Regional Health Department and Virginia Department of Environmental Qual- ity “stamps of approval” are poised for the formal emergency declarations by Appalachia, coupled with a twin declaration by Wise County emergency management authorities, to enable the Powell River solution to move forward and be eligible for state assistance.

Pitts said a mile and a half of temporary above-ground pipeline will be installed from the river “all uphill” to the reservoir. One submerged pump will be in the river, and another will be located about a third of the way up the Woodland Acres mountainside to achieve the task. Pitts said the system was implemented in the late 1980s and worked fine then.

Luntsford said the river tap will require two to three weeks to complete and pump about 350 gallons per minute into the reservoir. Pitts said that rate will provide about 500,000 gallons into the reservoir daily, enough to not only maintain the water supply in the reservoir at that time but gain about 100,000 gallons a day. Pitts said average daily consumption is about 400,000 gallons to 1,230 connections.

The town also serves some 200 Lee County residents in Keokee, but that service is on a single master meter, and the Lee County Public Service Authority bills those customers to reimburse Appalachia.

Also Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine urged stepped-up water conservation because of the drought and prospects for a drier-than-normal winter.

Localities should update water conservation and drought contingency ordinances and prepare to implement them, Kaine said Tuesday.

Also, he said, citizens and businesses should conserve water regardless of whether local governments have asked them to do so. This includes minimizing vehicle washing and irrigation, checking for water leaks in the home, limiting showers to less than five minutes, turning off water during teeth-brushing, and operating dishwashers and clothes washers only with full loads.

“These simple actions when performed by millions of citizens throughout the commonwealth can result in a significant reduction in the stresses placed on our water resources,” Kaine said.

Kaine also has ordered all executive branch agencies and institutions to review existing drought water conservation and contingency plans or develop new plans and eliminate non-essential water use.

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