Water as a metaphor

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Water as a metaphor				July 9, 2005

It used to be that in Toano you could savor a drink of cool water from the tap and thank God that you weren’t living in the chlorine capital of Williamsburg. But no more. Turn on the tap out here now and the stench of chlorine and other additives gives you the distinct impression that you’re getting your water directly from the pool at the James City-Williamsburg Community Center.

As for taste, forget it. You might as well be sucking up run-off from the Dow Chemical plant. In addition, the effects of all this on one’s intestinal system are probably best left undescribed. Hard as it is to believe, bottled water has come into its own out here in the not-so-boonie boondocks.

With a booming city of Suffolk drawing water from the same aquifer that supplies James City, and with the first desal plant able to clean up brackish water for only six more years, we might all begin to contemplate water trucks from afar and whether they will become as common around here as trailers at our schools. There just has to come a point at which development will outstrip the county’s ability to deliver acceptable tap water to its residents.

Adding to the problem is the fact that most developments are allowed to use tap water for their ubiquitous sprinkler systems. Ever in search of the perfect lawn or well-manicured ball fields and golf courses, we are tossing tons of fertilizer, chemical lawn enhancers and herbicides around as though they had no effect whatsoever on the environment. In fact, the anthropogenic run-off from such toxins is strangling our wetlands. One need only look at the sewer that Yarmouth Creek has become.

And yet we continue to approve one development after another.

One of the more recent assaults on what little is left of county farmlands and fields has come from an operation known as the Villages at Whitehall. According to the Concept Plan for the Villages at Whitehall, this development will plop over 1200 people in 522 multi-family and single-family clusters on 161 acres across from Anderson’s Corner.

In addition to putting yet more stress on the county’s groaning water supply, it will also have what may mildly be described as a deleterious effect on our school system’s ability to cope with increasing student loads. If the concept plan is correct, an additional 179 students will be thrust into the system in an area that is already bulging at the seams.

Stonehouse Elementary is now 50 students beyond capacity. Norge Elementary is at capacity, and Toano Middle School beyond the capacity of its building. It might well see a student body of over 500 within the next five years. In 2004-2005, our schools experienced a student growth rate of 4.93%, the largest annual increase ever.

As for the new third high, it might well be filled to capacity on the day it opens. Dumping 194 additional students into the educational hopper thus becomes very serious business. Either more trailers are going to have to be installed or the build-out date for the project must be moved forward to allow for the construction of even more facilities to accommodate an apparent never-ending flow of new students.

According to the Wessex Group, which compiled a fiscal impact statement for the county in conjunction with the Whitehall project, the cost to the county for services to Whitehall will be in the neighborhood of $525,000 annually. As late as July 1, additional proffers were being offered by the developer, but they may cover service costs for only from four to eight years. And this at a time when real estate assessment hikes for 2005 are likely to traumatize many existing homeowners come September.

Sooner or later county government, including the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors, is going to have to clean up its act with regard to future development. While more development means more money in county coffers, the fact is that whatever deals are being fashioned between developers and county administrators are pillaging what’s left of the high quality of life that used to be associated with James City County.

The environmental impact of rampant growth is already clear. We’ve lost whatever concept of the rural life we once had. Our schools are overcrowded and understaffed, and we seem constantly to be under the gun to build more and more facilities. Increased traffic on our highways and secondary roads has become an abomination, and the pressure for potable water has come to the point of being scary.

It used to be that the clutter the county and city have fostered was referred to as Denbighfication. But we have gone far beyond Denbigh. We are on the verge of entering the surreal world of Fairfax County and the suburbs of Washington, where congestion, water pollution and transportation clog reign supreme.

On July 11, the Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing to deal with re-zoning requests for the Villages at Whitehall. Perhaps as part of their discussion the members be so good as to explain why the water out here now tastes as though it’s been siphoned from a septic tank.