Loudoun Water staff emphasized that the water provided to Raspberry Falls through the community's two communal wells has continued to meet state and federal regulations, and that any further action would be “above and beyond” the regulation requirements.
“We have an interesting question in front of us,” said Samantha Villegas, the manager of communications at Loudoun Water. “What do you do when the customer wants more than what’s required of us? How far should we go? There is a big cost question associated with it. What do we do for Raspberry - because it’s what they want - [versus] what the [regulations] are. Whatever they’re requesting [comes with] big ramifications of cost and service.”
Todd Danielson, Loudoun Water’s Community Systems Manager, presented the board with various options, including cost estimates and time required for implementation. Proposed solutions ranged from doing nothing, because the water provided meets state and federal standards, to designing and constructing a membrane treatment program, which would cost about $2.5 million and take about a year-and-a-half to implement. Other options included bringing a replacement well online, which would cost about $500,000 and take about one year, and adding a UV treatment system, which would cost about $300,000 and also take about a year to implement.
“I don’t think anyone would put UV online with the existing wells; I think it would be along with a bigger package of bringing a new well on board," said Danielson. "The UV would probably go along with that and be on a similar time frame of bringing a new well on.”
All of the proposed solutions would still require additional storage to the communal wells in existence, and project costs performed to date would need to be repaid – the combination bringing an additional $500,000 to the project.
Board members, staff and residents discussed who might be responsible for burdening that cost – Raspberry Falls residents, any resident on a communal system, the community’s developer, or Loudoun Water. No conclusion has been reached.
The full Loudoun Water Board of Directors will meet Oct. 8, and will likely get a report from this subcommittee meeting. But according to Danielson, it is unlikely that the board will discuss the issue too much further at that time. He estimated that the Raspberry Falls proposals will reach the full board by November or December.
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According to Todd Danielson, Van Meter has a level of interest ranging from $800,00 - $1,000,000 to assist in fixing RF water issues.