None The Nature Conservancy in Virginia Press Releases Search All Press Releases David Dadurka 240-731-1606 ddadurka@tnc.org Ridge Schuyler 434-951-0584 rschuyler@tnc.org

Nature Conservancy Applauds State’s Decision to Issue Permit for Charlottesville-Albemarle Water Supply Plan

Water supply plan balances needs of people and nature; helps increase natural flows to key Rivanna waterways

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — February 13, 2008 — The Nature Conservancy today applauded the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s decision to issue a permit to the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority (RWSA) for the Charlottesville-Albemarle community water supply plan. The Conservancy believes that the community’s plan strikes a balance between the needs of people for adequate drinking water supplies and the needs of aquatic ecosystems for adequate stream flows. 

The permit allows for the expansion of the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the construction of a new pipeline between the Ragged Mountain Reservoir and the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir. The plan will also require RWSA to conserve roughly 14 miles of stream buffer and create four new acres of wetlands.

Following decades of discussion, and galvanized by the drought of 2002, the Charlottesville-Albemarle community embarked in earnest on an effort to expand its current water supply.  Private citizens participated actively in numerous public meetings to help choose among 32 different alternatives. Public officials, notably the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, listened when the public encouraged them to use water from our local watershed to meet the community’s growing water supply needs.

“We should be proud to live in a community that lives up to the phrase, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally.’  Whether it’s addressing global climate change or restoring freshwater flows, the community is acting to protect our shared environment,” said Ridge Schuyler, Piedmont Program director for The Nature Conservancy. “As stated in Charlottesville’s Comprehensive Plan, ‘there is a reason God put streams, wetlands, plants and animals on earth here with us.  When the balance of these things is disturbed, our human way of life is disturbed for the same fate.’  This water supply plan preserves this balance by meeting our need for adequate water supply and the rivers’ need for naturally flowing water.”

The overarching concern of the community to protect the health of our rivers and streams proved critical in securing both the public support and regulatory approval for the project.  For example, the project will allow the community to end its current diversion of water from the headwaters of the Moormans River, which will restore flows to that river.  Altering the flow patterns of our rivers can be devastating because naturally occurring variations in stream flow govern the habitat and life-cycle dynamics of aquatic species. 

“For too long, we’ve been draining one of the three major rivers that feeds the South Fork Rivanna,” Schuyler said. “This project lets us return natural flows to this river, which harbors a species on the brink of extinction.” 

Once the project is completed, the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority will use innovative, state-of-the-art flow releases—developed by The Nature Conservancy and contained in the permit—to release water from the Sugar Hollow dam allowing flows in the Moormans River to mimic more closely the natural flows in the river. 

Using flow data available from gauges operated by the U.S. Geological Survey and estimates of increasing demand, the forecasting demonstrates that the Moormans River will have a natural flow 99 percent of the time, compared to 64 percent currently.

To learn more about the Conservancy’s commitment to conserving freshwater ecosystems for people and nature, visit nature.org/freshwater.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.