Henrico officials celebrate Cobbs Creek Reservoir – 'a marvel of civil engineering'

The Angus hamburger steak is a popular entree choice at the County Seat Restaurant and Gathering Place on Old Buckingham Road in Powhatan, but the main course for a private event there one day 11 years ago was water – and lots of it.

On that day, a group of nearly two dozen Cumberland County landowners led by surveyor Edmund Burruss had gathered in a back room to meet with a team of officials from Henrico County who wanted to buy their property. In total, the officials sought 39 separate parcels and five easements totaling more than 1,800 acres – land located some 45 miles from the nearest entry point to Henrico.

The Henrico team had evaluated 52 sites along the James River before settling on this acreage at Cobbs Creek in Cumberland as the ideal site on which to build a massive reservoir that could supply water to Henrico County for decades to come. Burruss arrived at the meeting with sheets of data and a number of maps on posterboard, prepared to make the landowners’ case for why the property was more valuable than the price per acre Henrico’s contingent might offer. (State law permits localities to use condemnation as a means by which to acquire land for a reservoir, and Burruss and the other property owners were preparing for the potential of a prolonged legal battle to ensure they were compensated accordingly.)

But the Henrico delegation wasn’t interested in tying things up in court, and after lunch, Burruss and Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas came to an agreement that perhaps neither had expected. Upon returning to Henrico, Vithoulkas presented then-Henrico County Attorney Joe Rapisarda with an item he pulled from his pocket.

“I came back and I handed him a napkin with a per-acre sales price and two signatures on it,” Vithoulkas recalled. 

“He asked me, ‘What is this?’ I said, ‘That, sir, is a sales contract.’ Ultimately, that’s how we were able to tie up all the property.”

County officials who were there refer to the meal as the $1-million hamburger steak, Vithoulkas said, because the county ultimately agreed to spend $1 million more to acquire the land than it originally had intended. But the tradeoff was worth it, he said, to avoid potential court cases and delays that could have been even costlier in several ways.

Vithoulkas recalled the story Nov. 12, while standing on a piece of that Cumberland site whose purchase he helped negotiate more than a decade ago. Four days earlier, county officials had deemed the Cobbs Creek Reservoir to be substantially complete, culminating a visionary $300-million effort that had begun 22 years earlier.

The 1,117-acre reservoir, of which Henrico now has assumed operational control, is “a marvel of civil engineering,” Vithoulkas said, and “an achievement that speaks to the vision, leadership, talent, ingenuity, professionalism and creativity for which Henrico County is known.”

It is the largest municipal reservoir in Virginia, in terms of acreage, volume and cost.

The reservoir is expected to be fully filled and operational by sometime next year. With a capacity of nearly 15 billion gallons of water, it will be able to hold enough water to serve the entire county for the next century or longer, depending upon Henrico’s rate of growth. Officials will be able to divert water into the reservoir and then release it downstream later, as needed during times of drought, helping to ensure steady water supplies both for their own customers and the aquatic life on the James.

It was a severe drought in 2002 that prompted then-County Manager Virgil Hazelett to consider in the first place the idea of a reservoir that could buffer the county against water issues in the future.

“When you have a vision and when you have a gut feeling, you gotta do something about it,” Hazelett said earlier this week, recalling his thoughts from that year. “And we started this, not knowing how long it would take, but knowing full well that for Henrico County and future generations, we had to do this. And I am so very, very proud that it is here.”

Hazelett’s presence at the ceremonial event Tuesday presented more than just a chance for him to see his original concept come to life; county officials surprised him by naming the reservoir in his honor.

“The [Virgil R. Hazelett] Reservoir at Cobbs Creek may ultimately be the most enduring part of his legacy,” Henrico Board of Supervisors Chair Tyrone Nelson said of the former county manager, who served in the role from 1992 to 2013. “When officials in other localities wavered, Virgil pushed forward. When the great recession put financing in question, Virgil remained steadfast. He realized that Henrico would be able to grow and thrive if it had the water to do so.”

Said Vithoulkas: “Decisions like the one to build this reservoir are nothing short of monumental. They can change a community’s trajectory forever. If you don’t have water, you don’t have much of a future. Your community will not grow.”

It was a testament to Hazelett, Vithoulkas said, that he was able to successfully make the case to elected officials, citizens and others that such a facility – which would cost several hundred million dollars and take decades to complete – was necessary. Credit also was due to the then-members of the board of supervisors, as well as former deputy county managers Bob Pinkerton and Tim Foster, as well as former Henrico Public Utilities Directors Art Petrini and Bill Mawyer, Vithoulkas said.

Work on the reservoir began in 2016, and the following year, the Henrico Board of Supervisors awarded the largest-ever construction contract in the county’s history ($137 million) for the project. Officials began filling the reservoir in June.

The county earned approval from the Virginia Department to withdraw as many as 92 million gallons of water per day from the James River – 75 to use for its own customers and another 17 to be used by the county or regional partners to whom it expects to sell water before long, thereby also reducing costs for its own customers, Vithoulkas said.

A portion of the reservoir will be open to the public for boating, swimming and fishing (the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries will work with the county to stock the reservoir with fish).

On Tuesday, atop the site’s 160-foot main dam, Henrico officials celebrated the reservoir and its new name, and namesake, by toasting glasses of Henrico’s purified water, which recently was judged to be the best-tasting in Virginia at the American Water Works Water Distribution Seminar and Utility Rodeo, which rated water on clarity, flavor, odor and aftertaste.

“Finally, after 22 years, we’re here with our board and each of you to celebrate this remarkable achievement,” Vithoulkas said. “Without question, Cobbs Creek Reservoir is about ensuring our future. With it, we will have the water to meet the needs of our community and deliver the future that our residents want and deserve.”