Letter to Terrance Wharton - Stop Development in Raspberry Falls

TO: Mr. Terrance Wharton, Director Loudoun County Department of Building and Development 1 Harrison Street, S.E. Mailstop #60 Leesburg, VA 20175

CC: Mr. Dale Hammes - General Manager, Loudoun Water Mr. Fred Jennings - Chairman, Loudoun Water

FROM: Concerned Residents of Raspberry Falls

DATE: January 20, 2011

SUBJECT: Raspberry Falls – Raw Water Testing

Dear Mr. Wharton,

This letter is to ask you to immediately revoke all permits currently in force which authorize building and development activities, either planned or currently underway, within the Raspberry Falls subdivision in Leesburg.
Raspberry Falls residents are served by a community well system and, as you may be aware, we now have serious water contamination issues within our community. In fact, one of our primary wells (PW-1), which had been supplying water throughout the community, was just recently found to be groundwater under direct influence of surface water (GUDI) by the Virginia Department of Health. This prompted the immediate closing of the offending well and we are now left with only one functioning well. As you might imagine, it is of great concern to us that this last remaining well (PW-2) has tested positive in the past for harmful bacteria, algae and other surface water indicators.
Meanwhile, EPA is initiating a dye trace study which, we believe, will demonstrate the entire ground water system which supplies water to Raspberry Falls is GUDI. This determination is inevitable, as our community has been built on limestone karst. In this type of geology, harmful surface water contaminants, including animal waste, fertilizer, pesticides and other harmful agents, are transferred almost immediately to the ground water without the benefit of filtration.
Also, our current means of disinfection is limited to chlorine, which is insufficient to properly treat water, and can be very harmful itself when used at excessive levels. This chlorine has already caused uncommon damage to the copper pipes within our homes, which are designed to last some 25 years. Specifically, dozens of homeowners have experienced pinhole leaks in these pipes after only 5 years, new leaks have been occurring just within the past few weeks, and new water heaters and appliances are breaking down and being replaced due to the corrosive nature of the water supplied to our homes. It has already been determined by a scientist at Virginia Tech that ALL of our
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pipes will fail within 10 years. In his report, he cited “I predict that the rate of failure for this particular fitting in Raspberry Falls will approach 100% over the next 10 years”. Naturally, we fear what this chlorine is doing to our bodies if it is able to corrode copper. While Loudoun Water has added orthophosphates to the water in an attempt to mitigate the chlorine’s effects, this approach has not been working, as is evident from the continued new leaks and continued corrosion we are experiencing.
Finally, our communal water system is under-designed and we have exceeded the permitted capacity, for multiple years, of the two wells that service our community. We first exceeded our permitted capacity when the community was less than 60% built out. Today (as of November 2010) we now have only one well servicing the community and our communal water system is unable to support more connections. Simply put, our communal water system is on the verge of complete failure.
We are working with Loudoun Water and our local government officials to arrive at a satisfactory solution to what has become a crisis situation within our community. However, in the meantime, we believe it makes no sense to allow continued development of new homes within our community until this situation is satisfactorily rectified. In fact, we believe that it is incumbent upon all those involved to ensure development ceases during this critical time. It is vital to protect public health, which is now at grave risk.