The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA
December 14, 2000
Sixty years ago, when Hampton Roads voters approved creation of the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, more than 30 million gallons of untreated sewage poured daily into local waterways.
The HRSD's creation counts as an early triumph of regionalism that has benefited millions of people and will benefit millions more. Its success begs the question of why there aren't more shared functions, such as a water utility, serving the region.
Roughly 65,000 acres of Hampton Roads waterway bottoms contained contaminated oyster beds in 1940, up from 10,000 acres in 1927. Oysters in those beds were deemed unfit for human consumption. The great Hampton Roads anchorage was becoming a cesspool. Human waste washed onto beaches. Public-health officials and civic leaders were alarmed.
Incredibly, influential politicians in Portsmouth and then- Norfolk County (subsequently Chesapeake) vociferously opposed HRSD's creation, contending it would be futile to try to block the flow of raw sewage into waterways by building and operating expensive wastewater collection and treatment facilities.
HRSD demonstrates day in and day out just how wrong the naysayers were.
Hampton Roads' waters were even more polluted when the first HRSD wastewater-treatment plant began operating at Sewells Point in Norfolk in 1947.
Tens of thousands of military personnel and shipyard workers had ballooned the population of predominantly rural Southeastern Virginia during World War II.
HRSD initially served a population of 225,000. Plugging outfall pipes from which sewage flowed into waterways took years. Time after time, HRSD heralded the plugging of the "last" outfall, only to discover another "last" one.
Today, HRSD's 2,614-square-mile service area encompasses 1.5 million inhabitants. The agency operates 80 widely scattered pump stations moving the wastewater of 16 localities to 13 treatment plants. The total daily capacity of these plants is 230 million gallons.
The great gains in longevity and well-being of Americans have come from public-health actions, especially improved sanitation. So it is worth recalling that the first HRSD treatment plant would have been delayed beyond 1947 if the naysayers had prevailed.
Hampton Roads' waterways still are too dirty, but that isn't the fault of HRSD, which has done so much to cleanse them. Imagine what life in the region would be like without HRSD or its equivalent.
Someday residents may look back and wonder how Hampton Roads ever got along without other regional mechanisms to improve quality of life and deliver public services cost-effectively.
© 2000 The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA. via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
