Category: Water-waste water
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Whose Water Is It?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore There are some issues that seem to be baked into public policy and, because they affect sensitive and important areas, tend to lead to controversies periodically. Many years ago, one of the hottest controversies was the “inter-basin transfer of water.” Because Virginia is a “riparian rights” state, folks who live next to…
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A Small Victory – So Far – for Common Sense and Flood Mitigation in Virginia Beach
by James C. Sherlock Sometimes things work. Perhaps they will this time. There was a time in Virginia Beach when a partnership between a developer and a church to build new houses would have breezed through the Planning Commission and the City Council. That kind of open season on clearing and building on Virginia Beach’s…
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The More Things Remain the Same
by Joe Fitzgerald Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The Hopewell chemical plant where Kepone was born and raised has been cited 66 times over the past eight years for releasing toxic chemicals into the air and into the James River. The Richmond Times-Dispatch tells the story better than I do. What makes this…
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Petersburg Seeks State Funding for Projects Linked to Public Health and the Appomattox River
by James C. Sherlock While all of the attention in the state press has been on Petersburg’s proposed casino, the estimable Bill Atkinson of the Petersburg Progress-Index provided insight into other Petersburg requests to the General Assembly for budget amendments. Badly needed infrastructure projects and a tourism initiative are each tied to the health of…
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Water Leaks
by Jon Baliles This week, Jeremy Lazarus of the Richmond Free Press attended the City Council’s Governmental Operations Committee and found that “more than 6,300 homes and businesses in Richmond — 10% of the customer base — are facing disconnection of their utilities for nonpayment of water, sewer and gas bills.” Yikes. That is essentially…
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Embarrassing Managerial Incompetence
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Northam administration has just had an embarrassing case of managerial incompetence exposed. A series of articles by the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Patrick Wilson (here, here, and here) sets out the story of the Department of Health laying off 14 state employees who monitor drinking water systems across the state, including six field…
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Who’s Got the Best Water System?
The City of Richmond has the best water system among the seven Virginia cities included in a LawnStarter ranking of 2021’s Best Cities for Water Quality. The City of Chesapeake had the worst. LawnStarter, an online marketplace for lawn-care and landscaping services, ranked the 200 most populated U.S. cities based on metrics of consumer satisfaction…
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Meters Keep Spinning On Unpaid Utility Bills
By Steve Haner During the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Virginians piled up $184 million or more in unpaid bills with several Virginia utilities, and that was before the worst of the heat arrived in July. The figure comes from a short letter from the State Corporation Commission to General Assembly leaders dated…
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Saving the Potomac Aquifer
by James A. Bacon Broadly speaking, there are two approaches to dealing with increasingly stringent clean water regulations. One is to make incremental upgrades with the idea of deferring expensive capital outlays as long as possible, which is what most local governments do. The other is to go big and go bold — the option…
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Extreme Weather Event, Extreme Weather Event, Go Away…
Now, we’re told, we have a new reason to fear climate change: Record rainfalls are straining the capacity of combined-sewer overflow (CSO) systems in Richmond, Lynchburg and Alexandria. In heavy rains, the antiquated systems, which combine stormwater runoff and wastewater, release untreated wastewater into the river. “We’re on the frontlines dealing with climate change,” Grace…
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Northam Waters Down Virginia’s Livestock Fencing Plan
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmwDaYpgFMU&w=480&h=315] Northam Administration vs The Chesapeake Bay. Two disturbing facts were brought to light last week. First, a survey of two agriculture-intense Virginia counties found that the effort to reduce agricultural pollution by fencing off farm streams from cattle is far behind schedule. Second, our supposedly progressive governor put forth a very watered down…
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Are Chemical Storage Facilities Safe from Sea Level Rise?
If the threat of leaking coal ash pits kept you up at night, wait until you read, “Toxic Floodwaters: The Threat of Climate-Driven Chemical Disaster in Virginia’s James River Watershed,” a report just published by the Center for Progressive Reform. Authors Noah Sachs (a University of Richmond professor and a friend of mine) and David…
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Chesapeake Bay Foundation State of the Bay: The Bay is Regressing
School daze. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation(CBF) recently issued it biannual State of the Bay Report. The report can be found here. The CBF assigns both a numeric and letter grade to the bay. This report (2017 – 2018) garners a score of 33 for a grade of D+. The last report (2015 – 2016) tallied…
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Limousine liberalism in Alexandria, Va
Stinking to high heaven. The City of Alexandria spews an astonishing 11 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River every year. The overflows happen just about every time it rains. This is the result of a combined sewer system that is designed to collect sewage and runoff in a single system. When it…
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Goodbye and Good Riddance to Goodlatte
Carpetbagger. Bob Goodlatte is the 13-term congressman from Virginia’s 6th Congressional District who has blessedly chosen to retire this year. In my opinion he represents just about everything that is wrong with the GOP. Born in Holyoke, Massachusetts and educated at Bates College in Maine, Goodlatte somehow avoids the “carpetbagger” moniker so quickly put on Terry…