Port Royal Tour Highlights Partnerships and Persistence

On Monday, July 23rd, ASDWA and the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and Dewberry hosted a site visit for EPA and other organizations at Port Royal, VA (approx. 60 mi. south of Washington, DC). Port Royal is a very small water system with 85 connections that was built 60-70 years ago with zero to minimal maintenance since then. Funding from different sources have been used to rebuild the system – VDH provided a loan and grant through its DWSRF, USDA Rural Development (RD) provided a loan and grant, and Southeast RCAP (SERCAP) provided a search grant for a revised Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) as well as funding for emergency repairs to the existing elevated storage tank.

Partnerships proved to be the key for pushing this project to the finish line – VDH, USDA RD, SERCAP, Community Engineering Corps, as well as the residents of Port Royal. It takes time and commitment by the local community to overcome the multitude of obstacles that can cause a small system project to stall and/or fail.

This project essentially replaced the entire water system, except for the two existing wells. The new distribution system has been completed and work is underway for the new ground storage tank, pump building, and emergency generator. Construction will be completed in October or November of 2018.