A sewer line proposed to skirt more than a mile along the eastern edge of Kingsmill and pass near a recreation center in the neighborhood was approved Tuesday despite opposition from a handful of residents.
The James City County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to OK the project, signing off on the request from the Hampton Roads Sanitation District to replace an aging sewer line that is prone to spills and overflows.
The line is the major connector between an HRSD sewage treatment plant and James City County and Williamsburg.
The residents all suggested HRSD look at an alternate route, which would loop the line around the Wareham’s Pond Recreation Center instead of beneath land between its parking lot and Wareham’s Pond Road.
“[It could go] thorugh scrub land that belongs to Xanterra, so that way Kingsmill would be totally unaffected,” said Howard Ware, a Kingsmill resident. “Construction would be easier for HRSD because of access to open lands.”
The approved line passes through forested tracts of land between the neighborhood and the nearby Anheuser Busch plant before going beneath the recreation center parking lot.
HRSD Project Manager Eddie Abisaab said bypassing the recreation center would require about 1,415 additional feet of piping and to pass through lands with conservation easements. Those easements serve to preserve the land in perpetuity and shield it from development.
Because the project requires vegetation to be cut down in a line about 50 feet wide to provide space for construction, passing through the land with the conservation easements was a nonstarter for HRSD, he said.
Construction will require crews to add about 4,700 feet of new sewer line from the recreation center to the edge of Grove Creek. The land will be cleared out, a trench dug and the pipe placed inside. An additional 2,000 feet of sewer line will be placed beneath Grove Creek to connect to the treatment center.
Once the line is installed, any lands disturbed by the work will be replanted to try to make it look as it did before the work commenced.
A couple of the Kingsmill residents said they were concerned the pipe would be expanded from 12 inches to 36 inches in width and concrete would be used to construct it. Abisaab said the existing pipe is already 36 inches wide and made of concrete and the new one would be the same size and made of metal.
Supervisor John McGlennon (Roberts District) represents Kingsmill on the board of supervisors.
“I would have preferred to resolve some of the issues raised by Kingsmill, but it sounds as if the impact on the rec center is minimized,” he said, noting the HRSD-proposed route seems to mitigate potential impacts on undeveloped land.
Supervisor Mary Jones (Berkeley District) criticized the conservation easements before recording her yes vote for the project.
“The conservation easements are an issue, and we’re putting trees and the vegetation and species above and beyond serving the people,” she said. “We need to start thinking a little more about people, too.”
Abisaab said construction would be finished by 2016. There are still steps for HRSD to clear, such as dispatching a biologist to the land where the pipe will be built to conduct a survey of the flora and fauna. The biologist’s findings may compel HRSD to undertake additional work if environmentally sensitive plant life or animals are found on the land.
The contractor will not work in the area of the recreation center between Memorial and Labor days so it can be used during peak months, Abisaab said. Work on the recreation center property will be confined to land between the parking lot and Wareham’s Pond Road, and any vegetation disturbed there will be replanted.
The new pipe has an expected life of about 50 years.
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