The Western Virginia Water Authority is embarking on a plan to evaluate its supplies.
Roanoke City Council heard Monday about the Western Virginia Water Authority’s plans to reevaluate its water supplies— a process that’s occurring well ahead of schedule.
Mike McEvoy is the executive director of the water authority. He says the James River, Roanoke River, New River, plus multiple reservoirs and even local quarries are all under consideration.
“Smith Mountain Lake is — if you look in the current 2010 plan — that is projected to be the future water supply for the Roanoke region," McEvoy said.
The problem with Smith Mountain Lake is the water authority would need to pipe the water 20 miles upstream to the Roanoke metro area, which presents challenges.
Council members pressed McEvoy over whether the supply discussion was pushed up due to data centers. The authority’s agreement with Google allocates 2 million gallons a day starting out for its planned data center in Botetourt County.
“It does seem to me like we’re having to update our capacity because of these large industrial users," said Vice Mayor Terry McGuire. Later he added, “I guess what I’m wondering is what is that maximum amount that we are allocating toward industrial users. It sounds like we don’t necessarily know, but I’m wondering Is build-out of data centers accelerating the need for us to create new water supplies ahead of 2060 prematurely.”
McEvoy said Google may not even use that water; the first of its planned data centers is expected to be air-cooled. And he says the water authority still has plenty of capacity.
“If yr trying to make the argument the Carvins Cove reservoir or any of our water sources can’t supply water, then we need to stop issuing building permits across the region," he said. "We think we have lots of capacity. We think we have 50 million gallons of capacity, and we’re only using in the low 20s. So we think we have room there.”
This week’s presentation marks just the beginning of a process that’s scheduled to play out over the next 20 years.
