TCSD

 

Sections of failing fiber reinforced pipe removed near River Road

Perhaps nothing has contributed to growth in eastern Goochland more than the Tuckahoe Creek Service District (TCSD), which was created in 2002 to provide public water and sewer to an area bounded on the east by the Henrico County line, on the north by the Hanover County line, Rt 6 to the south and roughly Manakin Road to the west.

In the mid-90’s, Motorola purchased a large parcel of land in West Creek, some of which is now home to a soccer facility, to build a computer chip plant. Goochland entered into an agreement with Henrico to supply water to the plant. After building some parking lots, Motorola decided not to build the plant and sold the site. Capital One, which began to build its West Creek campus in the early days of the 21^st century, consumed much of the remaining water allocation from Henrico.

The county realized that it needed public utilities to attract economic development moving westward from Richmond. An early initiative to build a wastewater treatment plant on the James River, in the general vicinity of Ben Dover, was abandoned after what became known as the toilet wars, when opponents of the plant lined Rt 6 with old toilets in protest. A community meeting intended to discuss the benefits of the proposed facility ended when a citizen asked the presenter which of the homes in a photo of a wastewater treatment plant surrounded by houses was his and got no reply.

Undaunted, the supervisors continued to explore bringing public utilities to the eastern part of the county. In 2002, the TCSD was created to build trunk lines that would bring water from Henrico and send wastewater to the City of Richmond. Individual landowners would pay to connect to the trunk lines. The county borrowed about $65 million from the Virginia Resource Authority (VRA) to fund the project, which levied an ad valorem tax on all parcels in the TCSD to service its debt. Some doubts were allegedly raised at the VRA bond hearing about Goochland’s ability to handle the project but were overridden.

When the county was encouraging landowners inside the “footprint” of the TCSD to join—it was voluntary— the ad valorem tax stated as 15 cents per $100 of valuation. When first levied, it was 50 cents. At one point, the tax was reduced to 23 cents, which was inadequate to service the debt. The tax has been 32 cents per $100 of assessed valuation since 2012.

At the outset, the TCSD was intended for mostly commercial development except for Kinloch.

Building the TCSD was complicated and involved securing right of way easements and agreements with other jurisdictions and entities including the Country Club of Virginia. The company retained by Goochland County—the lowest “responsive” bidder—to build the trunk lines had issues. For some reason, the county specified that the pressurized force main would use fiber reinforced—sometimes snarkily referred to as paper mâché—pipe would be used. The contractor had no experience with this material, which led to another set of problems and cost overruns. In later years, it was discovered that there were few, if any, “as built” diagrams, indicating the exact location of these trunk lines, complicating maintenance and repair.

To further complicate matters, the then owners of West Creek and the county were engaged in a bitter battle over the real estate assessments of the business park that resulted in two week-long trials in Goochland Circuit Court. Even though business in the region was booming, there was little development in West Creek in the early days of the 21^st century. Instead of being the county’s economic engine, it looked more like a nature preserve. Indeed, it was rumored that the owners of West Creek were investigating a conservation easement for the property, which would have prevented further development on the project.

TCSD sputtered along, bringing the county perilously close to bankruptcy until the Board of Supervisors elected in 2011 restructured its debt, got a firm handle on its operation, and worked to attract development in the TCSD.

In the summer of 2021, the force main ruptured, and leaked raw sewage into Tuckahoe Creek contaminating the James River. A study and Preliminary Engineering Report conducted by Dewberry Engineers concluded that approximately 11,000 linear feet of the pipeline needed complete replacement to mitigate construction flaws and material defects incurred during initial installation of the pipeline.

In 2022, the county contracted with Spinello and Company to complete the repairs for just under $8 million, to be mostly funded by an additional $6.2 million VRA revenue bonds with an additional $1million from the Department of Public Utilities repair and replacement fund.

Construction on this project has been underway for the past year or so and is visible along River Road near Tuckahoe Creek. Unforseen complications, including underestimation of the cost of issuing the VAR bonds; change orders requiring additional engineering to cross Henrico utility lines and avoid Randolph Square roads; more robust erosion and sediment controls; and property restoration, which was removed from the initial bid, increased the final cost. At their October 1 meeting, the supervisor approved amending the FY25 budget by transferring $740,000 to the DPU Rehabilitation and Repair fund. Of this, $260,000 represents funds that were previously allocated to other DPU projects that came in under budget. The remainder will be treated as a loan to be repaid to the Capital Improvement Plan fund within the next ten years or less.

Technically, no board of supervisors can compel future boards to do anything. They can, however, leave messes for their successors to clean up. The TCSD should act as a cautionary tale for elected officials to think long and hard about the unintended consequences of their actions.