Cory Garrett and wife Rebekah pose with daughters, Jena and Palmer, in front of a field on their family farm. Cory’s family has farmed this land for years, but now Caroline County wants to take several acres of it to facilitate the pumping of millions of gallons of water out of the Rappahannock River, which is just beyond the tree line in this photo.
As ground water shrinks in the Caroline County area, moves are being made to take from the Rappahannock River, potentially forcing farmer Cory Garrett off of his beloved land and creating concerns about the potential impact on the health of the River.
The goal of the Caroline County Water Project is to place a pumping station and water treatment plant on the Rappahannock that would then propel water along a 35-mile pipeline to Carmel Church, where it would serve a growing population center.
Under this plan, wastewater would then be dumped into the Mattaponi River, nearly 50 miles from where it started.
The expected daily average intake from the Rappahannock is between 7.9 million gallons to 13.9 gallons. The estimated cost of the project is $16 million, without considering construction of the water treatment facility.
Joseph Schiebel, Caroline County Director of Public Works, is the head of this project.
“My job is to provide the water when the board says we need more water for development. So as far as whether we need it or not, that’s not really an opinion I would have,” said Schiebel.
Since 2011 the County has grown 11.6 percent. For reference, Essex County’s population has dropped 4.6 percent leaving it with one third of Caroline County’s population.
“Our groundwater levels are going down, the aquifers are shrinking because of excessive groundwater use,” said Brent Hunsinger. Hunsinger is a River Steward for Friends of the Rappahannock (FOR), an organization with the stated intent, “to be the voice and active force for a healthy and scenic Rappahannock River.”
The shrinking groundwater levels are what led Caroline County officials to enlist Schiebel to find a solution.
“And surface water is a very obvious source of water,” said Hunsinger.
This “obvious solution” has brought the County to Cory Garrett’s door.
The Garrett family has worked the land along the river in Caroline County for decades.
“My family has farmed that land since before I was born,” said Garrett “The field where they want to put this facility is the first field that I was ever left [to work] unattended. It’s special to me.”
Garrett is vocal about his struggles with the County.
“They say they want to work with me. But in reality, the message that comes across says ‘we want to appease you so we can do what we want to do’,” said Garrett.
He is adamant that if his property is used for this project it will be against his will.
“They’re using a loophole in the law to steal,” said Garrett. “Taking by force is stealing, whether there’s a law that says they have to compensate you for their theft or not.”
While the County denies such claims, residents such as Garrett believe that one of the driving forces behind the planned mass withdrawal of water isn’t public consumption, but the promise of corporate data centers.
Data centers are facilities that house groups of networked computers for the storage, processing, and distribution of large amounts of data. Virginia is home to a considerable percentage of the world’s data centers, with the vast majority being located in the northern portion of the state.
While these facilities contribute nicely to the employment base of the areas where they are located, they also require an outsized input of resources. Computer servers produce a lot of heat and require sufficient cooling to prevent them from overheating, shutting down, or even catching fire. The cheapest solution for this is evaporative cooling, through which a large data center can use between 1 million and 5 million gallons of water a day. A 2021 Virginia Tech study ranked data centers in the top 10 water-consuming commercial industries in the U.S.
According to Garrett, at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting Schiebel attempted to dispute the claim that the water from the Rappahannock is intended to cool potential data centers, maintaining that the water they plan to take is to be used as potable water for human consumption. However, Garrett says Schiebel previously introduced the idea of three potential new data centers that would require up to a third of the intake.
“They’re using data centers to justify the need for the amount of water. And then he stands up and says, ‘It’s not even a consideration’,” Garrett said, expressing shock at what he clearly sees as duplicity on the part of officials.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know, when you flesh out a rat,” said Garrett, referring specifically to Schiebel.
Hunsinger also believes the County intends at least some of the water to go for cooling of potential data centers.
“2.9 [million gallons] of the water is proposed, potentially for industrial cooling purposes, which at the end of the day is data centers,” Hunsinger said.
These suspicions appear to be supported by the County’s own website, where on the “Economic Development” page they encourage business investment by touting the County as an “ideal data center location.” A county that is admittedly unable to meet the water needs of a growing population appears to be actively courting investment from an industry notorious for its use of water.
“This permit is kind of at the intersection of two different things that are happening in the state,” said Hunsinger. Those two things, he said, are trying to balance stable economic growth with limited natural resources.
Many local farmers are concerned about the environmental impacts of the project.
“The worst thing that bothers me is they’re pumping it at one watershed and then they turn around and return it back to another watershed,” said local farmer Jay Hundley, who farms land in both Caroline and Essex Counties.
A good portion of the concern about pumping water out of the river and returning it elsewhere revolves around one issue: salt.
“It could increase salt lines,” explained Hunsinger. “There’s a reason they’re putting it there and not in Port Royal, because they looked at the Port Royal site, they decided not to because of the possibility that the salt line could be increased.”
When the water in Port Royal turned out to be too brackish, they moved the project eight miles upstream to Cory Garrett’s property.
“The problem I have is we’re Tidal,” said Garrett. “And so the only way our water stays fresh is from fresh inflow coming in. That keeps the saltwater at bay. If we lose that inflow, or we eat up all of that inflow, we’re going to lose our freshwater tidal areas.”
Salinity, the measure of salt in a body of water, rises in the Rappahannock as you approach the Chesapeake Bay. High salinity affects the fish population, water treatment equipment, and will kill crops, if used for irrigation. This would spell disaster for these farmers who draw their water from the river for irrigation. If there is too much salt present in the water, their crops and livelihood will die.
Schiebel dismisses these concerns.
“We’ve done a bunch of studies. There was a concern about salinity in the rivers increasing because of our intake, and we’ve shown that is very near negligible,” Schiebel said. “There’s been far greater impacts during drought seasons than what we will have done with our intake.”
This has not eased the minds of concerned locals.
“They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth,” said Garrett. “They’re saying the impact will be hardly noticeable, while at the same time they moved as far upstream as they did, because they’re worried about the salinity levels.”
Without any water coming back into the Rappahannock to hold the saltwater at bay, opponents of the plan are worried.
“We’re already seeing it, the salinity levels have gone up since the 80s,” Hundley said.
“They’re basically robbing natural resources from an area to transfer it to another one. I don’t believe in that,” Garrett said.
Hunsinger explained that the FOR has been reaching out to the county expressing their concerns about wastewater not being returned to the Rappahannock. So far the county has not responded.
Additionally, the FOR is concerned about how the fish in the Rappahannock will be affected. According to a 2020 DEQ report, 28 species of fish can be found within the project site. Five of those are being monitored due to endangerment.
While that report ultimately found that aquatic life will only be minorly affected by the project, Hunsinger said concerns remain.
“What we don’t know is with this intake and all the other intakes added together, what that comprehensive impact is to our fisheries,” said Hunsinger.
“There has been minimal interaction with the public on this. I haven’t been to any meeting yet, where a resident of Caroline County stood up in favor of this project,” said Garrett.
While Schiebel confirmed this project as the long-term solution, Garrett sees it as an easy way out.
“Joseph Schiebel tries to throw in there that we’ve explored all other options. And this is the only viable one. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. This is really the cheapest option,” said Garrett.
The DEQ is accepting public comments on the Caroline County Water Project through June 18, but every indication is that they intend to approve the application. From there, the county will still need to initiate the taking of Garrett’s land under eminent domain.
“If they succeed, they succeed. But I will go to my grave believing it was wrong,” said Garrett.
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