Bedford looks to water growth

Bedford County is one of the fastest growing localities in the state, with three major areas seeing unprecedented development.

While much of the construction has been tempered, due to recent economic conditions, county water planners are already looking toward the future.

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Many of the county’s 65,000 residents get their water from private wells, but there are roughly 20,000 public water customers in Forest, Stewardsville and near Smith Mountain Lake. Most of their water is purchased by the county from either Lynchburg or the Western Virginia Water Authority, said Brian Key, Bedford County Public Service Authority director.

Most counties in the region supply significant amounts of public water from their own sources. But Bedford has long purchased water from neighboring communities, despite having copious resources that could be tapped.

“Developing our own source is very expensive and it’s very time-consuming,” Key said, “and due to the nature of how the growth took place in the Forest area … there just hasn’t been a need to develop our own source.”

During the 1990s, Campbell County sold water to Bedford’s customers along the county’s eastern side. Later, the county entered into a purchase agreement with Lynchburg to serve those customers.

“The more water we purchase, the less expensive it is to produce,” Key said, “so it’s less expensive for us to purchase.”

A draft of the Region 2000 water supply management plan doesn’t take such purchase agreements into account when determining a county’s water supply situation. As a result, a draft plan lists Bedford County as already having a supply deficit, said Mike Lawless, Draper Aden environmental program manager.

While Key said he hadn’t fully reviewed the draft, he considers the James River and Smith Mountain Lake “pretty large sources of water and, right now, I don’t think we’re in a deficit at all.”

Currently, the county withdraws an average of 400,000 gallons from Smith Mountain Lake per day, which is treated at the Moneta filtration plant.

Recently, two state agencies approved a plan to increase the county’s withdrawal permit to up to 3 million gallons per day from the lake. The next step in that process is to get final approval from AEP and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which manage the lake, Key said.

The goal is to use that additional water to sustain future growth and increasing infrastructure.

Long-term infrastructure plans could include a water line along U.S. 460 or U.S. 221 to connect Bedford City and Lynchburg. Another idea that has been floated calls for expanding an existing waterline on Virginia 122 to the city, Key said.

“It’s our desire to provide a back-up source to the city.”

The Moneta treatment plant can currently filter up to 1 million gallons per day, but with some modification the plant could handle the new permit’s allowance, he said.

“Right now there’s no surprise that growth has slowed down,” Key said.

“But I also don’t think that’s going to continue and as growth picks up, the 600,000 gallons of extended capacity we have now probably will be used up in the near future.”

The idea of pulling more water from the lake for supply does have some property owners concerned that the additional withdrawals will lower lake levels. Key, though, called the amount as “a drop in the bucket” compared with weather effects.

“One rain event or one sunny day has a much greater impact on that lake than withdrawals ever will.”