"The sky is falling", proclaimed the City of Newport News in 1997 projecting that Newport News Waterworks users would be pulling 61.2 million gallons per day from the Peninsula's water system by 2010. Thus they hatched a plot to build the King William Reservoir.
Never mind that the King William Reservoir would destroy 1,526 acres of a highly diverse wetland system including more than 400 acres of forested wetlands - the single greatest wetlands impact on the East Coast since 1972, when federal restrictions were imposed. The reservoir would destroy animal habitat including a 17-nest great blue heron rookery and disturb two federally listed threatened plant species. The massive water withdrawals from the Mattaponi River would change the river's salinity, threatening spawning of fish like shad and the river's basic ecology.
And never mind that Native American Rights would be harmed. The reservoir would fall within a three mile buffer zone, violating a 1677 treaty with Virginia Native American tribes and disturbing over 100 documented Native American archeological sites. The annual shad spawning run, which has been a part of their tribal culture for over 15,000 years, would be finished.
The King William Reservoir is now costing over $300 million - current ratepayers throughout the entire area would be saddled with that cost. On Tuesday, Newport News City Council will vote on borrowing $20 million more to continue buying land for the reservoir. They do so just as other localities, like King William County that signed onto to the agreement to build the reservoir and share in the costs of acquiring the land, are one-by-one backing out of the agreement, citing concern with the "uncertainty" surrounding the reservoir.
That uncertainty has now grown to include evidence that the water use projections are completely off... a whopping 40% off to be exact. From the Daily Press:
Two reports from the Alliance to Save the Mattaponi show that the region's water use has stayed stable, and slightly declined, over the past 15 years, and remains about 17.7 million gallons per day lower than the 2010 estimate."Newport News really missed the mark," said Glen Besa, the Virginia director of the Sierra Club who coordinated the release of the reports Thursday.
"They're really significantly off the mark," Besa said. "That's a 40% error."
Ouch! Perhaps it is now this new certainty surrounding the King William Reservoir that will finally kill plans to obliterate the Mattaponi. Nothing is more certain than not wanting to pay a whole lot of money for something that's not needed in the first place, eh?!
So let's be frank here, Mayor Frank... why do you really want this monstrous reservoir built? So far it's obvious that the Mattaponi is expendable as is the money otherwise still in your constituents' wallets. For who's interest does the King William Reservoir serve? Anybody want to take a wild guess here?
Click here and learn how you can help save the Mattaponi once and for all.