Environmental Assessment for Drinking Water Pump Station Upgrades

Tazewell County, Virginia
Owner:  Tazewell County

WSSI) has conducted numerous Environmental Assessments (EA) and Environmental Reviews (ER) to satisfy the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documentation requirements tied to funding from the Commonwealth of Virginia for certain water projects.  Virginia requires every project to undergo an ER before loan or grant closing can occur; our portfolio includes preparation of the necessary documents for Water and Wastewater projects seeking funding from:

  • Financial & Construction Assistance Programs administered by the Virginia Department of Health’s (VDH) Office of Drinking Water

  • Virginia Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund

  • Virginia DEQ’s Wastewater Revolving Loan Fund

  • U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development Program

  • U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant

  • Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development

  • Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy 

We have worked on 17 of these projects to date, supporting infrastructure development and improvements for sewer lines, wastewater treatment plants, and water supplies, including supply lines, reservoirs, and dams/spillways.

WSSI* prepared an EA for Tazewell County’s plan to construct two replacement pump stations for the Town of Pocahontas’ existing drinking water supply, upgrades to support delivery of safe and reliable potable water to the Town of Pocahontas and the Pocahontas State Correctional Facility. The older infrastructure was unreliable and considered at risk of permanent failure.  The new pump stations were designed for new locations, requiring water be conveyed to the existing waterlines via new “loops” in the Town of Tazewell. 

WSSI completed the EA in accordance with VDH’s Drinking Water Funding Procedural Guidelines Program Package #7; and VDH approved a Categorical Exclusion (CE) from the EA for the new conveyance loops.  VDH’s Virginia Water Supply Revolving Loan Fund provided the funding for these improvements, which were designed to comply with the latest edition of the VDH Waterworks Regulations and the American Water Works Association guidelines.

The EA documented the environmental and socio-economic impacts of the proposed work, and showed that construction of the two pump stations would not result in adverse impacts to the project site and surrounding area.  The evaluation addressed natural resource, cultural resources, noise, air quality, utilities, and traffic impacts, as well as the community benefit from the proposed project via water supply improvements and the construction that would involve local labor and local purchases.

* Work was contracted with EEE Consulting, Inc. (3e), which is now part of WSSI