King William Reservoir

One week ago tonight at this time I attended NNCC meeting to speak out against the KWR and to focus my purpose more on the need to reconsider all alternatives and the KWR in particular. I think the decision makers are so dead set on KWR, that for the last 15 years or more, no serious consideration has been made to meeting our future water needs.

I had prepared notes for my 5 minute public comment, but was unrehearsed and barely got half way through my notes which I have pasted below. I strayed some and lost my place more than once. Not much of a public speaker at this point, but think I will have ample opportunity to improve. Guess I will have to return to the second half of my comments next time I attend NNCC. Probably end of April. So much else I have to comment on, but would like to set the groundwork to establish that I want to cut through the misinformation that abounds on the proponents side. Need to terminate the KWR project before I can get our elected officials to consider the alternatives to massive population growth and sprawl as is used to justify the KWR in the first place. It is not about drinking water, it is about growth.

Here are my notes that although I stuck pretty close to the text, I only got half way through:

3/13/2007 NNCC Public Comment

Introduction: Robert Richardson, Resident James City County

I was asked to wear something green tonight and environmentalist that I am, this is what leapt to mind (green frog playtoy on shoulder).

My Purpose is this: I am here to speak out AGAINST the King William Reservoir Project

Why am I doing this? I am doing this to force the full reevaluation of our future water needs and to force the detailed examination of all the possible alternatives to meet these needs. This is my overall objective.

I have had to use the word “force” because in 10 years or more, I have seen no willingness to do so voluntarily.

Who am I “forcing”? I wish to force Newport News as represented here tonight by the City Council, Newport News Waterworks and the Regional Raw Water Study Group. These are “the powers that be” that represent the 400,000 or so Newport News Waterworks customers and ratepayers. These are very likely YOUR representatives, only from my perspective; they are not representing your best interests.

I do not think your elected officials (with few exceptions, Ms. McMillan in particular) are looking out for the citizen’s best interest. Instead, anyone supporting the KWR project is looking out for developers, industry and other commercial interests. This project will only continue the overgrowth and traffic congestion and pollution that we already experience. I do not think that is what you as a citizen either voted for or would vote for in the future. These are YOUR representatives taking us merrily down the path of the unknown – the King William Reservoir, never looking back.

To that end: I have started what I want to be true dialog, where time limits, word counts and proximity do not interfere.

Introducing: kwreservoir.info, and my King William Reservoir Blog. Visit now, visit often, become involved from your living room. K-W-R-E-S-E-R-V-O-I-R-.-I-N-F-O . .info for information, informative.

Since all focus is on the King William Reservoir, I must first torpedo that project before the powers that be will entertain any conversation of alternatives. As long as this is the case, my focus will be on opposing the King William Reservoir.

$25 million dollars has already been spent and there is very little to show for this. $40 million dollars in revenue bonds was just approved in February, with $10 million allocated for just this year.

Although Newport News will tell you they have all the required permits, and although this may be a “fact”, it is far from the “truth” of the matter. More about this “Veil of misinformation” later or online in my blog. The truth is that the three permits required and combined authorize no contruction on the reservoir for at least the next 3 and a half years. The only thing the VWP permit authorizes in increased spending of data collections, studies and reports all coming due at the end of 2010. Newport News just allocated $10 million dollars in February to carry them through just this year!

————– This is where my time ran out! —————

I have had to do very little digging to find a laundry list of concerns that I will be opening up for discussion. Concerns that lie just below the tranquil surface waters of the King William Reservoir Project as Newport News presents it.

My website (kwreservoir.info) will explore these concerns as I learn more about them and give the public an opportunity to do their own research to become better informed. It is their money that is funding this ill-conceived and expensive project, so I suspect the public might want to become more involved as they learn about the true expense of this project, monetarily and otherwise.

The Blog will also allow Newport News et al. to contribute their comments on these concerns, just as any citizen may.

I hereby personally invite, The Mayor, The Vice-Mayor, The City Manager, other members of this board as well as the Manager of Newport News Waterworks and other public officials to join the conversation on kwreservoir.info and to answer questions posed there by their constituents.

Misinformation, Facts, Fallacies, Lies, and the Truth:

In my mind, misinformation is just that, it becomes a lie when it is spread knowing it is not true. Then there are “Facts”. Facts are certainly “True”, but not necessarily “Truthful”.

Take for example the “Facts” stated on “The Official Website of the King William Reservoir Project” sponsored by your money. Although they may be “facts”, they are anything but truthful, and that is what counts. You can find more about this topic under “Fallacies, Misinformation and Lies” in my blog.

Here is a first hand story about the “veil of misinformation” (and lies) that Newport News tried to pass off on me a few weeks ago. It has to do with U.S. Copyright Law and what is commonly know as “Fair Use”. You can also follow this in my blog.

Director of Communications and Public Relations Story here.

I hold no animosity for these individuals, but don’t let them think that they will be able to lie to me and not have it become part of the record.

Thank you for your attention and interests in these matters. I look forward to returning and continuing this discussion both in person and community wide online.

Bob R

Spent Friday in Richmond attending the quarterly SWCB meeting, waiting for the public comment period where I was given 3 minutes to speak.

I wished to convey 2 points:

1) Confusion and discomfort with the unprecedented “Reconsideration” hearing that to me circumvented the established procedure for a “Formal Hearing” and ultimately led to the extension of the KWR required permit (VWP93-0902) deadlines from 12/2007 until 12/2010 - 12/2012.

2) My concern over recent Virginia legislation (HB3113/S1403) that would dissolve the SWCB and other citizen boards in favor of more centralized power. In my mind, these bills are directly related (in a political sense) to the initial SWCB decision at their September 2006 meeting to go against DEQ Staff Recommendations and deny Newport News et. al. an extension to their 10 year VWP permit. The 9/2006 decision would have required NN instead to go through full review and to renew their permit in 2007. These bills would allow major environment damaging projects such as the King William Reservoir to go through the permitting process with much less citizen input and fewer checks and balances in the process.

NN after 20 years working on this project and after 10 years holding the VWP permit, does not want to face renew at this time, preferring to dump millions more into data collection and reports.  These reports are meant to address the many many environmental concerns that have been raised in the last 20 years and which have lead to redesign of major components (dam & intake) of the project as well as threaten the feasibility of the project as a whole with a pumping hiatus that could last 4 months or more just when river water flow is at its highest and most needed to fill the reservoir for the summer.  Remember, this is not just “drinking water” as NN spins it, this is water for lawns, pools, gardens.  Also note that nearly 50% of our water use is for industry and other non-residential uses.

While sitting through the SWCB hearings, I learned one key bit of information. The SWCB only votes on the project presented to them as to if it meets the guidelines. They have no authority to require other, perhaps less environmentally damaging alternatives be considered.

So, if NN is going to consider alternatives, it will only be if the people paying NNWW bills and NN’s citizens tell them to do so. My purpose is this; get the citizens to take note of many drawbacks of the KWR and to insist that NN, NNWW, RRWSG go back to the drawing board and reevaluate all the alternatives.

Bob R.

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Finally after a week and a half, I got Newport News to demonstrate their understanding of Copyright/Fair Use and retract any policy contrary to those rights.

This afternoon, I heard from the Communications and Public Relations Director for Newport News. I was told that indeed I had Fair Use rights to anything produced by their NN/TV48.

I also got confirmation that there is no other written policy for which to get confused with the Cablecast policy (aka Tape Exchange Policy).

I was provided a copy of a 3/2/07 fax of a copy of the “Tape Exchange Policy” where it states that the locality providing video may determine if the video “shall be cablecast in their entirety, or if they may be edited or excerpted.” This was the policy that was wrongly quoted it was determined. Not sure what took so long to get it into my e-mail inbox. Think they were still studying Fair Use implications.

So, now I have NN on record acknowledging my fair use of their video productions. The 2006 KWR Video has so much misinformation, unfulfillable promises and outright lies that with only 5 minutes at a time at public comment, I will be able to keep criticizing this project for months to come.

Bob R.

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Well, 3 more days have gone by and my requests for copies of Policy have gone unacknowledged, let alone answered. So, I prompted NN Communications and Public Relations again as follows:

Dear XXXXXXXXX,

It has now been 3 full days since I last reminded you of my outstanding request(s) for a copy of the policies from which you are quoting as they existed 2/26/07 when YYYYYYYYY last quoted the “all or nothing policy”. I would like both the policy s/he quoted from (TV/Cable Policy) and the correct policy geared for the public. If you have had to update these policies to bring them in line with the “Fair Use” provisions of U.S. Copyright law as I pointed out to you, then I feel I should also be given a copy of the updated policy, the one I will ultimately have to abide by should I accept it.

I also am waiting on clarification that your prior explanation from last Friday is a global policy for all NN/TV48 productions and not just for the one 2006 KWR production.

Please demonstrate you now know what “Fair Use” is and that “Fair Use” grants my use of these very materials without any need to contact Newport News for permission.

These policies are all documents that should be under the control of the Director of Communications and Public Relations, and it should have been simply a matter of attaching them to an e-mail and sending it along to me. I have been waiting over a week, and you have left me with the strong impression you are being anything but truthful with me. Keep digging.

Bob Richardson

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Came across this collection of posters: http://library.fws.gov/posters/smallwhorled.pdf

I believe it is well known that there are several colonies of this Federally Endangered and threatened plant in the area to be flooded by the reservoir. This plant likes moist soil, but not that moist! The area is also at the far extent of the Mabee’s Salamander, which is listed as a threatened species in Virginia.  According to a news blurb I saw in the Gazette earlier, this species had delayed York County sports field development.

Good enough for the U.S. Marines, but not for the U.S. Corps of Engineers or the Virginia DEQ evidently with regard to KWR.

VA Fish and Wildlife knows about the Mabee’s Salamander.

If you know of any other Threatened or Endangered species (terrestrial) affected or likely to be affected by the King William Reservoir, please add a comment indicating so.

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Greetings, Following is a list of videos produced by (or for) Newport News that either deal entirely with the King William Reservoir Project or at least makes mention of such.  Does anyone have any of these in their possession? I would like to review all of them but at $15/DVD that adds up to too much money for one person. Anyone interested in starting a library of the more relevant ones, splitting the cost and making our own legal copies? ($15 is a copying fee).

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

KWR – Where Do We Go from Here? (2006…the program you have)

07/29/05 KW Press Conference

04/28/04 Water Quality Report

03/17/04 Water, Use it Wisely

09/04/03 KWR Update

09/03 Water Treatment

? Message from Waterworks: Pipe Flush

? Waterworks Backflow Prevention

10/17/02 Waterworks Water Restrictions

04/11/02 Water Conservation

04/01/02 Drought, Drinking Water, and You

02/27/02 Current Issues

05/02/01 Waterworks: Quality on Tap and Behind the Scenes & Drinking Water Week, revised and update for re-runs

03/21/01 A Call to Action

03/01 Water Report

10/30/00 KW – Cultural and Historic Issues

07/29/00 Corps of Engineers Announce Intent for Permit/KWR

08/01/00 Basics, Benefits, and Opportunities

1999 – Water for Future Generations (Brooke Boland)

08/06/99 KWR Environmental Issues

06/11/99 KWR Issues and Answers (Boxley studio)

06/07/99 KWR The Region Responds

05/28/99 KWR

08/19/97 KW Report to the Community

07/10/97 What if We Have a Drought?

01/28/97 Water for Future Generations

11/26/96 KWR

3/6/07 Tuesday 5:30pm. Well not much communications back from Newport News about my outstanding requests so far this week.

I DID hear back from my contact at video services with a list of 25 productions dating back to 1996 that either make reference to the King William Reservoir, or are entirely about the project. $15 * 25 = $375, A little too much $ for my blood right now, so will post list separately and see if anyone already has any of these or if anyone is interested in starting a library of such. This has been the Good Public Relations Story.

The outstanding request:

Have not gotten any “accurate numbers” about budget, land acquisition, time line or projected water needs either, but I fully understand that it might take a day or two to pull these together. Or should it? Shouldn’t these be well established numbers with budgets kept current as new expendatures, legal fees and all those hidden costs add up? I’ll sit on the fence on this one and happily give them a few more days to come up with some numbers I can actually work with in my research.

Now for the bad.

As part of my “Fair Use” dispute with Newport News, I was initially told their policy was that I was to play entire video or none at all. On 2/28/07 after two days and no response to my renewed request for “Fair Use permission” (which really is a oxymoron if you understand “Fair Use”) to the Director of Communications and Public Relations, I renewed my request and I asked for a copy of the policy from which they were quoting, stating in my e-mail: “Perhaps I will understand your viewpoint better if I get the full perspective.”

Thurs 3/1/07 I received my first response at the close of business, apologizing for the delay and promising: “We are looking into this matter and will respond to you as soon as we have an answer.” I was simply asking them to acknowledge my “Fair Use” rights to their video productions, and advised them that the policy they quoted was “in direct conflict with the Fair Use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law”. That was on 2/26.

By now I am thinking that they are drafting said policy and have called in the lawyers to see if they can prevent me from using their own propaganda against them (have you seen the 2006 KWR video?). So, I reply immediately to the initial response that I still would like to see a copy of the policy they are quoting from as it existed 2/26/07 when quoted. You would think the Directory of Communications and Public Relations would have ready access to this document electronically and could simply send it as an attachment to me, that is if it existed. If it existed, it should have been on their website, but I searched and searched and could not come up with any such policy.

Friday 3/2/07 I finally get an “answer” to my request and am granted “Fair Use” rights to the one specific video under consideration. It was all passed off as a misunderstanding due to the fact that there are in fact two policies, one for when videos are shared with regional cable/broadcast tv providers and one for general public use. The mistake was the “all or nothing” restriction quoted was from the Cable/Broadcast TV Policy and not the general public policy.  This took fully four work days to come up with as a response.

Soooo, I immediately write back the following to the Director of Communications and Public Relations:

Thank you for setting the record straight. Please provide one point of clarification and the requested copy of your existing communications policy (if any).

The point of clarification that I would like is that your determination below is a global policy and not an exception to existing policy (hence request for copy of said policy).

I want to know that I have these same fair use rights for any of the productions produce by TV48/NN Video productions.

Thank you for providing full details on your current policy.

Now two full business days later and all 3 requests for a copy of their policy(ies) has gone unacknowledged. I guess they had to draw the lawyers back in for conference. I could have searched the “big I” and found enough examples that I could hack together a policy for them in just a few hours!

So tell me your opinion; Is this simply Poor Public Relations or is this Something Worse? Comment below.

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Misinformation abounds about the King William Reservoir Project, so do lies. Misinformation becomes a lie when it is spread knowingly, otherwise is it simply misinformation, as bad as that may be.

One of my primary objective is to break through the “veil of misinformation” (as the Vice-mayor described it at NNCC 2/13/07 meeting) put up by the Proponents of the project and expose the truth. I think when the truth be told, King William Reservoir plans will start to grow mold.

As a first example of misinformation, I quote from the “Official Website of the King William Reservoir Project” on the status.shtml page (for which I refuse to provide a link) where it talks about finally reversing the local Army Corps decision and receiving the required permit from the Corps (major lawsuit pending) :

This major milestone concludes the permitting phase of the reservoir project. The design and implementation phase is underway as project staff works to develop a comprehensive eco-monitoring plan, establish a site management team, and continue historic resources and mitigation work.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Read on.

Back in September 2006, NNWW et. al. were denied in their request to extend their VWP permit by 5 years to allow for them to complete the required studies and resultant reports. This is the permit that actually specifies and authorize the reservoir and supporting structures to be built. The then current permit expired 12/2007 and would have to go full review at that time instead of being simple extended with no review. The State Water Control Board (a citizen board of the Virginia DEQ), refused to rubber stamp the project and refused the extension request much to the surprize of Newport News as well many of the participants of the hearing.

In December 2007 at an unprecidented “Reconsideration” hearing that was requested by Newport News far after the time for an appeal to the September decision had past, was to many people’s amazement allowed to move forward and resulted in the current VWP permit being extended 3 years to allow the required research and reports to be completed. These are reports that Newport News in 1992 promissed to complete in 12 months. Now 15 years later, they still are incomplete and Newport News et. al had to come begging for an extension reconsideration since they were unable to follow established proceedures (which seems to be a recurring theme with NN) and file an appeal within the required 30 days. This circumventing of conventional process and proceedure is a recurring theme with Newport News every step of the way. Every time they get no for an answer in the permitting process, somehow this gets reversed. It seems as if undue political pressure is being exherted behind the scenes and that is one of the reasons I will state that the sum of all the pieces does not add up to the whole when it comes to the facts in this project.

Was the reconsideration inappropriate? CBF wanted a “Formal Hearing” (the opportunity to present a case and allow the SWCB to correct what is percieved as inappropriate precident setting decisions) and requested one as being the path of least resistance. DEQ refused to allow a Formal Hearing and has forced the CBF to file a lawsuit instead. Just what we need, more money spent on lawyers (no disrespect intended, just a financial consideration). Evidently DEQ has no qualms about keeping their lawyers busy and drawing negative attention to Virginia.

The reports required by VWP 93-0902 of particular interest to me are the Wetlands Mitigation Report, Eco-Monitoring plan and Salinity monitoring plan for the Mattaponi River. These reports were clearly spelled out in the 12/22/2002 First Major Modification (more later) in Section D. pg 7/11 of the VWP No. 93-0902 . They were due 1 year later as agreed to by Newport News. As is typical fashion, Newport News seems to play by its own rules without punishment and has yet to complete these reports. It took a Second Major Modification (much much more on this topic later) this past December at the unprecidented reconsideration hearing to extend the terms of the permit.

No way can Newport News et. al. implement anything with the current restrictions on the VWP permit. As of December 2006, restrictions were placed on the permit that strictly prohibit any construction of any structures. The only thing permitted by the combination of all 3 required permits is for Newport News et. al. to spend millions more of the 400,000 ratepayers to NNWW’s money on the required research, data collection and multiple reports long over due that will be required before they will even be heard for a renewal of a now extend (under protest-more later) permit.

Yes this is a very long post. Thank you for your interest to read it all. The permitting process proceeds three steps forward and two steps back. There has been tremendous opposition to this project both scientifically and culturally from its inception. It certainly does not stand on its own merrit and has consumed nearly $30 million to date, just to prop it up and keep it alive, with litte to show and no certainty that the reservoir will ever be built. There is good reason to believe it may never be built - with your help. Rejoice.

This post has barely scratched the surface of the permitting issues and the vast amount of misinformation and lies presented by the proponents of this project. I’m just getting started, much more later.

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Saturday evening.

Well, just loaded survey software for the first time and got all the database and tables working fine. To play with the software, I created a quick and dirty 5 question survey and put a link to it on my home page above the link to the blog. I would like people to take the survey cold, before they start delving into the details. Could have multiple surveys too, perhaps an exit survey after people have perused my site.

Now, just got to buckle down and figure out what makes a good survey and what type of information that I want to capture. Mostly I want to learn where people are starting from in 2007 or how much people understand the issues. From my personal experience of asking friends what they know about the King William Reservoir, I find the public is under-educated to understand the many complexities of such a process, the extreme cost, and the many other drawbacks from which it suffers.

So, piddle around with my q&d 5 question survey to see how it works if you like. I will be working on a more extensive one for release soon. All data from the q&d survey will be archived and eventually errased, so don’t worry if you don’t know the answers. I think some in NN don’t know these answers, or would have to dig for them.

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”

Hi,

If you would like to see a particular topic/aspect of the KWR project introduced or discussed, please make a comment to this post to let me know what you have in mind.

My intent is to dwell on budget figures, where the revenues are coming from and to press for reconsideration of the alternatives. In essence I am asking NNWW et. al. to start over using good numbers for projected water needs and then see how many alternatives there are.

The research has never been done to see what the alternatives are for the 16.7 mgd projection by the Army Corps of Engineer’s IWR. It has been probably 20 years (or so) since alternatives were considered. Ever since, NNWW has put all their eggs in the KWR basket.

Desalination technology has come a long way in the last 20 years, just to name one alternative. Desal has numerous other advantages such as cost, phased implementation, security, cost, purity, far less environmentally destructive, cost, … . I am in the process of researching desalination processes and options.

So, if there is more that you think should be told/heard, add a comment here to suggest a topic. If I am unable to take it on and do the appropriate research, I might be able to find someone who can.

Bob

“Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” or when using a Blog, “Thinking Locally, Acting Globally”