The Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority has officially embarked on the final and most critical phase of a decades-long strategic initiative, awarding the contract for a massive pipeline project designed to secure the water supply for Charlottesville and Albemarle County. This capstone project, known as the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir (SFRR) to Ragged Mountain Reservoir (RMR) Pipeline, Pump Station, and Intake Construction Project, represents the culmination of the 2012 Community Water Supply Plan. This comprehensive strategy was born from the hard-learned lessons of a record-setting drought in 2002 that exposed systemic vulnerabilities and underscored the urgent need for a more resilient, interconnected, and robust water infrastructure. The award of this final construction contract marks the beginning of the end of a visionary overhaul, promising to enhance system redundancy and operational flexibility to a degree previously unattainable, ensuring a reliable source of clean drinking water for the region’s residents and businesses for generations to come. This is not merely a construction project; it is the physical manifestation of long-term planning and regional cooperation aimed at future-proofing a vital public resource against environmental uncertainties.
The Capstone Project a Multimillion Dollar Investment
Project Award and Timeline
The RWSA Board of Directors has awarded the substantial $87,633,497 contract to Garney Companies, Inc., a Fairfax-based firm, entrusting them with the comprehensive construction of the new water intake, a high-capacity pump station, and the vital pipeline that will physically link the region’s two primary water sources. This monumental undertaking is scheduled to commence in early 2026, with an ambitious target for completion set for 2030. The project’s timeline reflects its complexity and scale, signifying the final major construction milestone in the long-range Community Water Supply Plan. Upon its completion, this infrastructure will not only modernize the existing system but fundamentally transform how the region’s water resources are managed. The selection of a specialized contractor and the significant financial commitment underscore the critical importance of the project, which is poised to become the cornerstone of the community’s water security strategy. This investment represents a proactive step to ensure that the infrastructure can meet the demands of a growing population while mitigating the risks posed by climate change and potential future droughts.
A Plan Decades in the Making
This ambitious pipeline is the final puzzle piece of the Community Water Supply Plan, a strategy formally adopted in 2012 following a meticulous ten-year planning period. The genesis of this comprehensive plan was the severe, record-setting drought that gripped the region in 2002, an event that laid bare the significant vulnerabilities within the existing water infrastructure. That critical environmental challenge served as a catalyst, spurring the Charlottesville City Council and the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors into a prolonged phase of regional cooperation and strategic development. Incorporating extensive input from numerous community organizations, the resulting plan outlined a long-term, multi-faceted investment to overhaul the community’s drinking water system. The core tenets of the plan focused on three critical areas: significantly increasing the storage capacity of the reservoirs, systematically replacing aging pipelines while installing new, high-capacity conduits, and thoroughly renovating the area’s two primary urban water treatment plants to enhance their efficiency and capacity.
Engineering a Resilient Water Future
Creating Unprecedented System Flexibility
The technical core of this endeavor involves the installation of 6.5 miles of large-diameter, 36-inch raw water pipe, creating a direct and robust connection from the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir to the Ragged Mountain Reservoir. Complementing this extensive pipeline is the construction of a brand-new raw water intake facility and an associated pump station, both strategically located near the South Fork Rivanna Dam. The true significance of this new infrastructure lies in the profound operational flexibility it will grant the RWSA. For the first time, the authority will possess the critical ability to transfer raw water between its two principal reservoirs. This interconnectivity empowers the system’s two main water treatment plants—the Observatory Water Treatment Plant and the South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant—to draw water from either reservoir, or both simultaneously. This dynamic capability allows for adaptive resource management, enabling operators to respond effectively to fluctuating conditions such as changing water levels, variations in water quality, or the essential need for system maintenance without interrupting service.
Leveraging Key Water Assets
This innovative interconnectivity allows the RWSA to fully harness the distinct and complementary advantages of each reservoir. The system can now capitalize on the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir’s massive 259-square-mile watershed, which, when combined with the Sugar Hollow Reservoir’s watershed, accounts for an impressive 99% of the urban water supply’s total collection area. Simultaneously, the system can utilize the immense storage capacity of the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, which, following the completion of a separate Pool Fill Project, will hold 2.1 billion gallons of water, representing 63% of the entire urban system’s reserves. The new pump station is an engineering powerhouse, designed with a capacity to move up to 41 million gallons of water per day (MGD). This supports a potential transfer of 25 MGD from the SFRR to the RMR, while also enabling the direction of up to 10 MGD from the SFRR to the Observatory Water Treatment Plant and 16 MGD to the South Rivanna Water Treatment Plant, ensuring versatile and powerful water management capabilities.
Part of a Broader Modernization Effort
While this pipeline project is a landmark achievement, it is presented as one integral component of a much larger, system-wide investment strategy. Over the next five years, the RWSA is committing over $300 million to a comprehensive suite of projects meticulously designed to enhance the capacity, redundancy, and overall resiliency of its raw and finished water systems. The explicit goal of this massive capital improvement program is to prevent unplanned service outages and guarantee a constant, reliable, and clean supply of drinking water for all residents. Other key projects that form this modernization effort include the 2014 completion of a new earthen dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir, recent renovations at treatment facilities that have already increased their processing capacity, and the ongoing Ragged Mountain Reservoir Pool Fill Project to reach its 2.1-billion-gallon target. Furthermore, a new 36-inch transmission pipe is actively replacing deteriorating lines that were 70 and 100 years old, while new transmission pipes are improving distribution and pressure to northern county areas, all part of a holistic approach to infrastructure renewal.
A Legacy of Water Security
The award of the final pipeline contract marked the beginning of the end of a multi-decade quest to forge a robust, flexible, and drought-resistant water supply system. This initiative, born from the regional vision that followed the 2002 drought, represented a massive public investment in long-term security. The project’s ultimate completion provided an unprecedented level of operational flexibility, allowing the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority to strategically manage its two most critical assets—the vast SFRR watershed and the immense RMR storage—to guarantee a reliable water supply. Integrated within a broader capital improvement program exceeding $300 million, this final piece of the plan underscored the RWSA’s unwavering commitment to modernizing its extensive infrastructure. As a wholesale provider to the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, the Authority successfully fulfilled its mission of delivering high-quality, sustainable water services by managing its vast network of reservoirs, dams, and treatment facilities to meet the community’s needs for generations.
