By Heather Michon
Correspondent
The Fluvanna Board of Supervisors honored the three Lake Monticello lifeguards who rushed to aid an injured driver after she careened down the hill and into the water at the Main Beach on July 6.
Paige Tomaras, Zach Butler, and Savannah Peterson each received a framed copy of the resolution at the Aug. 2 Board meeting. The resolution expressed the supervisors “heartfelt gratitude” to the three for their “quick thinking and selfless actions.”
The resolution also thanked staff, citizens, and emergency personnel for their response to the emergency. “It is no understatement to proclaim that it was these combined efforts that saved the life of the driver.”
Action items
Supervisors also approved:
A transfer of $91,625 from the FY23 BOS contingency budget to the FY23 county attorney budget. County Administrator Eric Dahl said the budget overages came during the transition to an in-house county attorney and reflected work done on a large number of procurement contracts and revisions to two major county ordinances.
An additional $118,000 as part of the county’s matching funds for VDOT’s Palmyra Village Streetscape project. Last fall, supervisors approved $317,000 as the county’s share but cost increases lead VDOT to request an increase in funding. This project, anticipated to begin in 2025, will update and revitalize the roads in Palmyra Village.
A resolution recognizing Wintergreen Police Department officer Mark Christopher Wagner III, who was killed in the line of duty on June 16. The resolution also supports the expansion of the state’s Line of Duty Act to private police departments like Wintergreen and the Lake Monticello Police Department. LMPD Chief David Wells explained that under the current law, the families of fallen officers from private departments do not get the same benefits as public officers, even though their duties are the same. The legislature may take up the issue of expanding the Line of Duty Act in the next session.
Wastewater, dogs, James River
Much of the meeting was spent on presentations on issues that will almost certainly return for votes in the coming weeks and months.
Bret Heim, project manager from Dewberry Engineering, gave his recommendations for expanding the wastewater system for the Zion Crossroads water and sewage system, with a focus on the growing industrial space east of Troy Road and south of Rt. 15.
Heim said he had evaluated different options for a new gravity wastewater line, a force main, and a pumping station. The preferred option would build a new line originating south of Little Creek Road in Troy to a new pumping station on Rt. 15.
“It was the shortest route and the shortest force main, but it also impacted the fewest amount of property owners, which is definitely something we want to be conscious of when we do these projects,” said Heim.
If approved, he tentatively put the cost at around $8.3 million. Planning and construction could take two to three years.
County Attorney Dan Whitten gave a presentation on a potential county-wide ordinance to combat the problem of dogs running at large. The primary enforcement method would be a $100 fine for any owner found to have violated the law three times within two years.
Farm dogs and hunting dogs would be largely excluded, with the focus on aggressive family dogs who frequently get loose and menace neighbors.
After a discussion with the supervisors, Whitten said he would review and tweak some of the language before bringing back a finalized version. Once refined, the ordinance change will be advertised for a public hearing and a vote before the end of the year.
County Administrator Eric Dahl gave a brief update on the James River Water Project. Designed to draw water from the James River near Point of Fork in Fluvanna and pump it to a water treatment facility in Louisa for use at Zion Crossroads, the project was forced to relocate a couple of miles from its original planned location after an archaeological survey found evidence it was once the site of an ancient Monacan tribal settlement.
Dahl said the current projected cost of the project would be just over $45.6 million, but that represented the “worst-case scenario.” In any scenario, the total cost will be between $40-45 million, with Fluvanna paying half under the cost-sharing agreement with Louisa County. Much of Fluvanna’s share could be spent out of money paid to the county by Dominion for the decommissioning and cleanup of the Bremo Power Station.
Right now, the project is on track to begin in the spring of 2024 and be completed in January 2026.
