RICHMOND — Population growth is putting an increased demand on the state's freshwater reserves, and providing Virginians with enough fresh drinking water will be a major concern facing the state over the next two decades.
Gov. Bob McDonnell’s natural resources policy team said Monday that growing demand for fresh water and a lack of rainfall have dropped water tables.
“Virginia is likely to have long-term water problems,” said state Secretary of Natural Resources Doug Domenech. “We have a growing population. Everybody needs water. We think of ourselves as having a lot of water, until you don't and then suddenly it's a huge issue."
Much of Virginia did not receive much rain this winter, said Deputy Secretary Maureen Matsen.
For example, the Tidewater region has been under a drought since the spring, according to the National Weather Service in Wakefield. The NWS provides weather forecasts and tracks stream and river flows plus tracks climate data.
Although the rest of the state has seen normal rainfall, well monitoring sites indicate that groundwater levels are dropping in portions of the Piedmont and Northern Virginia, said Jerry Stenger, director of the climatology office at University of Virginia.
Agriculture and industry are heavy users of fresh water, but water use increases during the summer as Virginians wash their cars, fill their pools and water their gardens, Stenger said.
Four public water systems have restrictions on water use, including Caroline and Marshall counties, according to the June drought report.
“We do have to come to terms with how we manage that,” Stenger said. “It’s not Mother Nature that’s contributing to the problem. …It is a combination of other factors that people have more control over.”
One of these factors is mining. Mary Rafferty, a spokeswoman for the Virginia chapter of environmental advocacy group Sierra Club, said the state’s investments and policies should not risk existing water resources by allowing mining operations that would contaminate drinking water.
Uranium deposits in Southside Virginia lay upstream from a reservoir in Mecklenburg County and a lake that provides drinking water for Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Rafferty said.
Opponents of uranium mining said this activity would contaminate the drinking water for a large part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area.
Uranium mining is banned in Virginia.
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