New Bedford water line will serve more than 200

Workers are installing more than seven miles of water line along Smith Mountain Lake, in one of Bedford County’s largest ongoing utility projects.

The line will eliminate four existing well systems that serve more than 200 customers. It will connect with a water treatment plant on Radford Church Road that draws water from Smith Mountain Lake.

Workers have installed pipes along Isle of Pines Drive (Virginia 655), and for the next three months will extend the line along Smith Mountain Lake Parkway.

The county has invested several million dollars in the project because the area’s groundwater was poor in production and quality, said Brian Key, director of the county’s public service authority.

“Groundwater sources are great when they work, but when they don’t there’s not a lot of options to improve the volume or quality of the water,” Key said. “It is what it is — a limited resource.”

The Radford Church Road plant has treated water for the nearby High Point subdivision since 1998, Key said.

“The reason that we started at High Point was because we had well system failures there,” he said. “The groundwater was very difficult to treat so we started with that area to provide service with the lake water, which is actually very clean.”

Increasing water and sewer capabilities to developing areas like Smith Mountain Lake is a way Key said officials could get ahead of the county’s population growth rather than reacting to it.

The service authority draws about 200,000 gallons a day from Smith Mountain Lake, which Key called “a drop in the bucket.” Last year, it opened a new wastewater treatment plant on Whitehouse Road in Moneta — where significant residential and commercial projects are ongoing.

Roger Cheek, the Huddleston District member of the Board of Supervisors, usually leans against developments in his votes. But he said installing water and sewer along Virginia 122 in Moneta was a must to compete with Franklin County.

“I’m OK with that,” said Cheek. “We’re beginning to reap some of the benefits. If you want that kind of growth, you have to provide those services. I don’t want that everywhere.”

The water treatment plant was the county’s largest project built within a $13.5 million bond issuance that supervisors acquired from the Virginia Resources Authority in 2005, Key said. The money also is going toward the Isle of Pines to Gross Point line extension, which should be finished by next year, and the New London Business and Technology Center.

Along with expanding the reach of county water lines, officials also are spending money to research groundwater capacity. Many county residents rely on wells for the water.

In Cheek’s district, for example, he said 75 percent are on well systems.

A severe drought in 2002 led the authority to significantly expand waterlines in Forest after a number of wells had simply stopped producing, Key said.

Cheek said the well failures hurt some of his constituents near the New London area.

“A lot of those folks spent their savings to drill new wells,” he said.

To study groundwater and its capacity, Cheek suggested that the county partner with the U.S. Geological Society to test various sites.

“I’m just concerned about the water level,” Cheek said. “Is it falling? That’s something we need to know if we’re going to have all this development.”

Bedford County Assistant Administrator Frank Rogers said the USGS and the state Department of Environmental Quality would collect groundwater data over the next 10 years and report back to the county with its findings.

Rogers said the county would continue to pay $100,000 over the next five years for the research.

“It is a long-term investment,” he said.