King William Reservoir Project
Source: Implementation Assessment
The most vigorous proponents for a new dam and water supply reservoir in southeastern Virginia were the community leaders in the Newport News area, on the north side of the James River in urbanizing Hampton Roads. Representatives of James City County, York County, Williamsburg, and Newport News formed a Regional Raw Water Study Group in 1987, examined over 30 alternatives, and determined that a new dam and reservoir was needed for the Peninsula. As they described it:1
Newport News and its partners planned to dam up Cohoke Creek, then pump water out of the Mattoponi River and into the reservoir behind the dam. The King William Reservoir proposal was adopted by the Regional Raw Water Study Group as the "proposed alternative" in 1993. Water from the Mattaponi River would fill the valley of Cohoke Creek in King William County, creating a 1,526-acre reservoir storing 12 billion gallons of water. Another 11.7 mile pipeline was planned to carry water from the King William Reservoir to Beaverdam Creek, from which it would flow into the existing Diascund Creek Reservoir and the treatment facilities of Newport News Waterworks.
Environmental and cultural objections affected the project's original design. Newport News moved the original dam site proposal to reduce the size of the reservoir from 2,222 acres, after the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) objected.
Cohoke Creek itself does not have suffficient flow to fill and maintain the reservoir. A 1.5 mile pipeline would have carried the Mattaponi water over the watershed divide (marked by State Highway 30) into the Cohoke drainage. Newport News Waterworks planned to increase its water supply by 20 million gallons/day, and draw 10-15 million gallons/day from the Mattaponi River at Scotland Landing between the town of Walkerton and the Mattaponi Indian Reservation.
The reservoir project partners spent over $50 million, before cancelling their plans in September 2009. Major objections came from environmentalists (the project would have flooded over 400 acres of wetlands, threatened fisheries in the Mattaponi River, and potentially facilitated more urban sprawl) and the two Native American tribes near Cohoke Creek, the Mattaponi and the Pamunkey. The pumps on the Mattaponi River would have been in fresh water, upstream from the line where saltwater intrudes from the Chesapeake Bay. Since the Mattaponi River's average flow is 500 million gallons/day at that site, the city felt the environmental impact would be acceptable.
The Cohoke Creek and the surrounding forest is not unique in the area, but two "threatened" species (the sensitive joint-vetch and the small whorled pogonia, small plants rarely noticed by non-botanists) may be present. Converting the creek valley to a flatwater lake would not destroy critical habitat, and the $31 million wetland mitigation plan would have reduced the environmental impact.
Nonetheless, it would have dramatically changed the local landscape, and perhaps the local culture, and there was steady and intense opposition. The Mattaponi tribe revealed in 1999 that a secret sacred site would be destroyed by the reservoir. Newport News Waterworks managers were unable to provide sufficient mitigation to reduce the tribe's concerns and gain their support.
The recreational impact of the King William reservoir on the local economy would not have been significant, in contrast to the impact of Lake Gaston and Smith Mountain Lake on the rural communities surrounding those reservoirs. Lake Gaston and Smith Mountain Lake are located far from the coast (don't be surprised if you see large cabin cruisers in back yards of Bedford and Mecklenburg counties). The proposed King William Reservoir would be small, and is located so close to the existing Chesapeake Bay marinas. It was difficult to picture a major recreational boom associated with King William Reservoir. Still, a booster group did identify potential recreational benefits, ranging from from picnics to swimming.
The greatest barrier to building the reservoir originally was the Army Corps of Engineers (before local environmentalists became the last group to object, and used the courts to block various approvals). In 1999, the District Engineer in Norfolk rejected the request for a Section 404 permit, which was required under the Clean Water Act to destroy Federally-protected wetlands in order to construct the dam and reservoir. His rationale echoed the debates about increasing the water supplies for Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and other growing urban areas in the western United States. The engineer rejected the permit because he thought the Peninsula communities had a better alternative - conservation.
The District Engineer estimated the water deficit for Newport News and its partners at 17 million gallons/day. He considered a proposal to build a reservoir to provide 40 million gallons/day to be excessive. Only after Newport News and its partners in the proposal had reduced demand would the engineer consider a need to increase the supply. Conservation to reduce water demand vs. new dams to increase water supply is a common debate west of the 100th Meridian, but rarely an issue in Virginia - which gets over 40 inches of rain annually.
Other alternatives besides the King William Reservoir that were considered in the Environmental Impact Statement were:
At the city's request, Governor Gilmore appealed the adverse decision from the District Engineer. After reviewing the appeal, the Norfolk District office was over-ruled by the North Atlantic Division in New York, and a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit was issued by the Corps in 2005.
EPA chose to accept rather than object to the new permit, even though environmental impacts had not been mitigated further. In contrast, in the 1980's and 1990's EPA had twice vetoed Corps approval of a similar dam/reservoir project on Ware Creek in James City County. EPA blocked the Ware Creek project because there were alternatives to providing additional drinking water that would not damage over 400 acres of wetlands in James City and New Kent counties.
The Federal permit from the Corps of Engineers was not the only major hurdle for the King William Reservoir. In May, 2003 the Virginia Marine Resources Commission - a state agency - denied an essential permit to build the intake pipe in the Mattaponi River, in order to protect the spawning and nursery area for shad in the Mattaponi River near the proposed intake. As described by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay:3
However, Newport News sued. After a rehearing (and reportedly some behind-the-scenes pressure by state politicians), the Virginia Marine Resources Commission issued the required state permit for the water intake on August 12, 2004.
The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued a Virginia Water Protection Permit in 1997, and affirmed it again in 2002. DEQ ruled on December 27, 2004 that the reservoir complied with Virginia's Coastal Resources Management Program. On November 4, 2005, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed that the State Water Control Board permit was legal.
In mid-November, 2005, the Corps of Engineers issued the final Section 404 permit to permit destruction of 403 acres wetlands in the valley of Cohoke Creek, and replace them with 806 acres of restored or newly-created wetlands elsewhere. That left two remaining potential barriers to construction: a court's interpretation that the 1677 treaty between the colony of Virginia and the Mattaponi Indian tribe would require tribal approval of the project, or a court decision overturning the Corp's 2005 approval.
The lawsuit by The Alliance to Save the Mattaponi River, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Sierra Club, and the Southern Environmental Law Center ended up killing the project. On March 31, 2009, a Federal District judged rejected the Corp's 2005 approval of the Section 404 permit, saying "Before determining that a Project that would flood 403 acres of functioning wetlands is the least-damaging practicable alternative, the Corps must do more than give vague explanations about the potential adverse effects of or potential political opposition to other alternatives. It must explain fully, based an analysis adequate to the task, why other alternatives are either impracticable or more damaging."4
On April 30, 2009, the Corps of Engineers directed Newport News to stop work on "all activities previously authorized by the permit."5 In addition to the costs of additional studies required by the Corps, the project managers identified a high risk that the state DEQ and Virginia Marine Resources Commission permits would expire and that the Corps of Engineers would not issue a new Section 404 permit.
Newport News finally abandoned efforts to build the King William Reservoir on September 22, 2009. Instead, the city will "pursue 'a series of smaller, more incremental things,' such as increasing the size of existing city reservoirs, tapping more groundwater supplies and reducing usage through conservation."6
One probable impact: Newport News will not have a dominant position in future water supply systems for neighboring jurisdictions, and that may affect the city's ability to shape development on the Peninsula outside of its borders.
