Prince Edward County, in their quest to build a water system even though they have only one customer, has in the past tried to justify the project by claiming they could sell water to other regional communities, such as Burkeville and Crewe.
Over and over again in the last year, Buckie Fore and his Merry Band have insisted that the water project was needed in order to help guarantee water to the other communities. It was also said that it was needed in order to provide backup for the Town of Farmville, which turned down an invitation to throw their money away alongside the county.
Back around the time of the election, I was made aware of an article from the Courier Record from Blackstone which reports on a discussion at the Board of Supervisors meeting to hear a presentation from Dewberry and Davis, a civil engineering firm.
Of course, time got away from me, and I am now presenting it, because I just ran across the article. Under a headline of “Abundance of Water for Towns, says Study”, the article reports on the future plans and the present state of the water systems in their communities.
A few choice graphs: (From the Thursday, November 5, 2009 edition)
A state required ‘water inventory study’ shows that there is sufficient supply for the towns of Blackstone, Crewe and Burkeville to meet their present and future water needs.
~snip~
The study shows that of the three towns, Blackstone, which gets its water from the Fort Pickett Reservoir–by far has the most capacity.
Blackstone has reserved up to one million gallons per day to serve Crewe and Burkeville, but the three towns’ water systems would have to be interconnected for that to happen. It also reserves one million gallons a day for nearby Fort Pickett.
It looks as if those towns have their water needs covered. Prince Edward County will continue to pour money down a rathole, including the recent $2m contract for studies, tests, and more design work on the water plant. Certainly these towns can interconnect their systems easier and less expensively than they can pay for water to be pumped to them from Sandy River Reservoir.
That leaves the Manor, a development barely hanging on at this point after ten years of failure, as the only customer of the water authority formed for this venture.
Did I mention there is a dump underneath the reservoir that is known about and being ignored?

