Dominion Power nudges Town toward movement on corridor waterline

After a year Dominion Power wants to see movement on a Town commitment to providing a backup waterline into the north corridor and its power plant. Photos/Roger Bianchini

Being told procrastination over a decision on providing an emergency backup for its central water system into the Route 522 North Corridor could cost the Town of Front Royal $3.5 million prompted a decision to move forward – cautiously.  The information that Dominion Power was threatening to pull back its promise of a $3.5-million contribution to the waterline redundancy project came during a review of the status of the project by engineering contractor CHA during a September 5 town council work session.

Total cost of the preferred option of a new parallel water line presented to the Town about a year ago is currently $5.5 million, which leaves the Town having to commit $2 million to the project.  Dominion’s interest in seeing a backup waterline constructed is based on cooling needs for its massive electrical generating facility.  Were the Town’s north corridor waterline to fail, the only existing backup water supply to the entire industrial-commercial north corridor is the one-million-gallon Fairgrounds Road water tank.  CHA has estimated just two days of service to the north corridor from that tank.

CHA’s project summary notes that based on 2014-15 numbers, the Town’s average daily pumping of water into its entire system is 1.95-million gallons per day (MGD), with 0.42 MGD going into the north industrial-commercial corridor.  Dominion Power is the north corridor’s largest water consumer at 0.17 MGD (170,000 gallon), or about 40-percent of the corridor’s daily water consumption.

Front Royal’s water plant is capable of a maximum output of 6 MGD; however, permitting restrictions on the system’s water source – the Shenandoah River – limits it maximum daily output to 4 MGD, about twice its current total.

Following a summary of how the preferred option was reached – relative costs and feasibility – and what the next step is, a somewhat grudging consensus was achieved to authorize CHA to move forward with a hydraulics study to determine the precise status of the Town’s existing water lines in the north corridor and how the proposed new 12-inch waterline could be connected into the system.  The estimated cost of a “Geotechnical and survey” included in CHA’s project cost estimate is $83,700.  CHA’s executive summary of the project describes the parallel line extension as being accomplished with three new sections totaling 23,500 linear feet of new waterlines.

Steve Steele reviews engineering consultant CHA’s recommendation of a parallel water line to provide redundancy in case of a main line break.

Vice-Mayor Eugene Tewalt continued to voice concerns about the project at the Tuesday, September 5 work session.  Chief among the concerns he has expressed over the past year is whether the existing north corridor system has adequately-sized water lines to tie into the new 12-inch line being proposed as the parallel backup feeder line into the corridor.

However, Tewalt appeared to be won over when Town Manager Joe Waltz pointed out the hydraulics study would provide the answers Tewalt is seeking on the project’s overall feasibility and current system line structure.

“I’ll agree to that, but not the project,” Tewalt responded to Waltz’s observation of what council needed to authorize as soon as possible to head off Dominion’s threat of dropping its financial commitment.

Told of Dominion’s threat to pull out of funding if forward movement illustrating an ongoing commitment to the project was not made in short order, Mayor Hollis Tharpe wondered if the power company could legally withdraw its financial commitment – “When we were negotiating with them that $3.5 million was part of the deal.

Town Attorney Doug Napier was told to explore the Town’s contract for water rates to Dominion to see if the company was locked into its financial obligation to the backup waterline project – which seemed kind of a moot point if council were to continue its reluctance to authorize the project because of its share of the costs.

Queried about the Town’s deal on water rates for Dominion Power, staff explained that Dominion gets the in-town water rate for its first five years of operation; then the Warren County government will help cover the next five years of Dominion’s water costs at the double out-of-town rate.  After that the company will be responsible for covering the out-of-town rate on its own.

Questioned about the Town’s financial obligation on the preferred parallel line option, CHA engineer Steve Steele said “an aggressive 10-year payback period” with an annual debt service of $224,000 had been developed.

Steele noted that the initially looked-at looping system seen as the best long-term solution had been rejected due to cost – currently estimated $10 million, requiring a Town contribution of $6.5 million.  Of two storage tank options, Steele noted that the short-term fix of a couple of days of additional water had been rejected as unfeasible by Dominion, which does not want to face a shutdown of the plant due to a lapse in water service.

Steele reminded council that even with immediate movement authorized at this point it was likely a two to three-month process to achieve permitting, adding of the overall project, “We are a year or more out from having a piece of equipment out there.”

The consensus pushed for by the mayor of moving forward on the hydraulics study for the parallel waterline option was achieved and is slated to be voted on at the next council meeting, September 11.

Mayor Tharpe pushed for a consensus to move forward so as not to risk losing Dominion’s $3.5-million commitment to the estimated $5-million redundant waterline cost.