Virginia
Water in Orange, Va., still unsafe to drink, but okay for washing, authorities say – WTOP News
While the water is still unsafe to drink or ingest, authorities in Orange, Virginia, say it is okay for bathing, washing and flushing. Residents say their water has smelled like paint thinner, gasoline and diesel since last Wednesday.
While the water is still unsafe to drink or ingest, authorities in Orange, Virginia, say it is okay for bathing, washing and flushing.
Last Wednesday, Rapidan Service Authority’s (RSA) Wilderness Water Treatment Plant started hearing about a strange odor from their customers, saying their water smelled like paint thinner, gasoline and diesel.
“The water treatment staff responded to those concerns and validated them, and also smelled them at the water treatment plant,” said Dwayne Roadcap, director for the Office of Drinking Water at the Virginia Department of Health.
Roadcap told WTOP that after the reports started coming in, state agencies, local authorities started looking for what might be causing the odor. Some water sampling also started.
Orange County confirmed that testing showed presence of hydrocarbons in RSA’s water system and from source water in the Rapidan River.
That led the Virginia Department of Health and the RSA to issue a “do not use” water advisory for the Lake of the Woods subdivision, Wilderness Shores, Somerset, Edgewood, Germanna Heights, Twin Lakes, Germanna Community College Locust Grove campus, and two shopping centers with several restaurants on Route 3.
On Saturday night, the advisory was changed to a “do not drink” water advisory, meaning residents are able to use the water supply for “bathing, toilet flushing, laundry, and other uses not
associated with consumption or ingestion.”
“That was based on a few things that have been happening over the last few days,” Roadcap said. “Lab sampling results have been coming in. We know the odor is no longer present at the water treatment plant intake, and the objectionable odor has been reducing over time.”
The 32-year veteran of Virginia’s health department told WTOP that the best case scenario is whatever caused the odor has bypassed the intake at the Rapidan River where the water treatment plant draws its water.
According to Roadcap, as the next order of business, “local leaders have been actively trying to move fresh water from the river to the system that has been treated.”
The cause of the odor is still not known.
“There was a significant effort to investigate up and down the river. No source was identified,” Roadcap said.
Roadcap, who has been the director of the Office of Drinking Water for six years, said hydrocarbon problems do happen.
“There are effective ways to treat that and remove it. In this particular case the water treatment plant did not have the types of technology in place to do the chemical feeds that would help remove that type of odor,” he said.
There have been conversations, according to Roadcap, with his office and the RSA about adding that treatment process to the system.
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SOUTH BOSTON, Va. (WSET) — A manufacturing company in South Boston is now in contact with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality after an oil spill this week.
A Hitachi Energy spokesperson says that because of heavy rainfall and a pump failure, a small amount of transformer mineral oil spilled.
The manufacturing company makes power transformers. The spokesperson told ABC 13 that an employee noticed oil in a secondary containment area.
SEE ALSO: Virginia measles cases climb as outbreak hits Buckingham County, officials say
The company says the material was tested and found to be non-toxic. They say the oil stayed on company property with no harm to the community or environment.
ABC 13 reached out to the Department of Environmental Quality, and we are waiting to hear back.
New Virginia laws banning the sale and transfer of assault weapons go into effect in about five weeks. But at least five conservative prosecutors say they won’t enforce them.
Spotsylvania County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ryan Mehaffey said he believes the laws violate the Constitution.
“The Second Amendment is alive and well in Spotsylvania County,” he told News4.
The commonwealth will ban the sale and manufacture of certain semi-automatic weapons, shifting gun laws to more closely align with states such as California and Illinois. But as Virginia teeters from purple to blue and back again, some elected officials are making clear that the new laws won’t be enforced in their counties.
Attorney General Jay Jones said in a statement: “Commonwealth’s Attorneys are elected to enforce our laws, which is what we expect them to do when these laws take effect on July 1.”
The law will make it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine for people to buy, sell, transfer, import, or manufacture an assault firearm.
Mehaffey said the law is in direct conflict with the Second Amendment.
“It’s fundamentally opposed to a free society, a society where liberty reigns. And this is the moment in time where the Second Amendment was drafted and enacted, where the government couldn’t take the right of the people to defend themselves away,” he said.
Eleven other states and D.C. already have versions of their own assault weapons ban. The details and laws vary and they’ve been challenged in the courts. In fact, several lawsuits have already been filed against Virginia’s new ban.
“Every assault weapons ban that has gone before a federal court in this country has been upheld, including, most importantly, Maryland’s,” said Mary Kenah of Everytown for Gun Safety.
She said Maryland’s ban is considered more restrictive than Virginia’s and was upheld by the same court that presides over Virginia. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up this case, so Maryland’s assault weapon ban remains in place.
“The people of Virginia showed that their priority is gun-violence prevention. They elected a former Moms Demand Action volunteer as their governor,” Kenah said.
In places such a Spotsylvania County, they’ve elected Mehaffey as their prosecutor. It’s a county that surprised a lot of people in November when it voted blue, in favor of Gov. Abigail Spanberger.
Despite that shift, Mehaffey said he’s confident that his position against the new assault weapons ban is what his constituents want.
Other prosecutors who have said they won’t enforce Virginia’s assault weapons ban are from Powhatan, Pulaski, Scott and Smyth counties.
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