Editor’s note: This is the third in a four-part series examining the 15th anniversary of Isle of Wight County signing its 2009 Norfolk Water Deal and its impacts. The second was published Sept. 30 and the first on Sept. 24. The fourth will focus on options for increasing the county’s use of its Norfolk water or addressing the groundwater issues.

 

Isle of Wight County Board of Supervisors Chairman Joel Acree campaigned on a platform of opposition to the Norfolk Water Deal when he first ran for office in 2015, but now says he supports the 2009 agreement.

“My opposition was based on somewhat of a lack of education,” Acree said. 

Since taking office, he’s learned of the role the state Department of Environmental Quality has played over the past several years in weaning Virginia’s municipalities off their dependence on groundwater.

The 6.6 million gallons of groundwater the Western Tidewater Water Authority, formed from Isle of Wight County and the city of Suffolk, is presently permitted to withdraw per day reflects a 20% decrease from the 8.3 million gallons per day the WTWA was permitted in at the time of the Norfolk Water Deal’s signing.

According to Chris Pomeroy, the attorney who negotiated the Norfolk Water Deal on behalf of Isle of Wight and Suffolk, the reduction came about as a compromise with the DEQ, which had originally halved the WTWA’s permit to 4.2 million gallons per day in 2017, contending demand on the Potomac aquifer had reached unsustainable levels. 

According to a 2016 Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, or JLARC, report to Virginia’s General Assembly, the DEQ began using a new model in 2012 developed by the U.S. Geological Survey to more accurately forecast demand on the Potomac aquifer.

The JLARC report listed the WTWA, International Paper’s Franklin mill in southern Isle of Wight County and farmland owned by Smithfield Foods subsidiaries among the state’s top 10 groundwater users, with the three sources collectively using 7 billion gallons per year in 2014.

The report, noting International Paper alone accounted for 5 billion of those gallons that year, warned that without changes to the state’s permitting process, industrial users would continue “crowding out” available groundwater, continuing “higher costs to residential customers and businesses.”

“There will likely not be enough groundwater to accommodate future growth in the region without additional permit reductions or increasing supply through large-scale, long-term water projects,” the report concluded.

Specifically, its authors predicted that without reductions in use, areas of the aquifer system would fall below regulatory minimum levels within the next 50 years. State law requires no more than 80% of water levels in an aquifer to be drawn down through permitted use. If groundwater levels in aquifers near the coast drop too low, it “can result in saltwater contamination of drinking wells as underground saltwater flows into emptied aquifers,” the report warned.

The report noted the DEQ, as of 2016, had already begun negotiating with the state’s 14 largest groundwater permit holders – including the WTWA – to secure reductions in use.

“Groundwater is becoming less and less available, and the movement is toward … surface water, which is what the Norfolk Water Deal helps support for the long term,” Acree said.

“The WTWA current groundwater permit is up for renewal in 2027,” said County Administrator Randy Keaton, who serves on the WTWA Board of Directors. “The current WTWA permit will require a reduction in groundwater withdrawal as a condition of the new permit.  This reduction will result in the future shift from groundwater sources to an increased need to treat surface water and therefore, the need to expand the surface water capacity of the city of Suffolk water treatment plant.  Planning is currently in progress for the various treatment alternatives for consideration in expanding the surface water treatment plant.”

Keaton said the Suffolk plant is currently capable of treating a maximum of 3 million gallons per day of Norfolk raw water. In 2023, the annual daily average of surface water treated at the Suffolk plant was 1.6 million gallons per day, meaning Suffolk too is using well below its 6 million gallon per day 2024 allocation of Norfolk water.

Smithfield, which operates a separate water system from the county and isn’t a party to the Norfolk Water Deal, is currently permitted to withdraw 1.2 million gallons of groundwater per day. The town used 65% of its allocation in 2023, and last year estimated that the additional 50,000 gallon per day demand by Hardy Elementary School and the surrounding Thomas Park and Tormentors Creek  neighborhoods served by a new water main would collectively increase the town’s usage by 1.76%.

“Our current groundwater withdrawal permit is in the process of being renewed now,” Town Manager Michael Stallings said. “There is a push from DEQ to ‘right size’ the permits to ensure that there isn’t excess permitted capacity in the system as a whole.”

The town of Windsor, which last began its renewal process in 2019, was at that time permitted to withdraw 560,000 gallons per day. Each town sells some of its allocation to Isle of Wight County – Smithfield for the roughly 500-home Gatling Pointe neighborhood and Hardy Elementary, and Windsor for the county’s Shirley T. Holland Intermodal Park.

“I do anticipate some reduction in our permit, but not to an extent that it will put our ability to provide water in jeopardy,” Stallings said.

In the event that either town were to one day find itself with less permitted capacity than demand, “we’re kind of prepared for that” with the Norfolk Water Deal, Acree said.

“Of course, we’re paying the price now, but down the road it’s going to be needed,” Acree said.