PWC Environmental Sustainability Annual Report

The Prince William County Office of Sustainability has released its first Environmental Sustainability Annual Report, highlighting progress, success stories and ongoing efforts to advance environmental sustainability across the community. 

The report provides a comprehensive look at how the county is implementing the Community Energy and Sustainability Master Plan, or CESMP, and advancing the Environment goal outlined in the 2025–2028 Strategic Plan. It showcases innovative initiatives, measurable outcomes and collaborative efforts taking place across county agencies and the community. 

Let’s step back and review a little background:

In November, 2020 the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) adopted the Climate Mitigation and Climate Resiliency goals: reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, sourcing 100% of countywide electricity from renewable sources by 2035, achieving 100% renewable energy in county government operations by 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality in county government operations by 2050. 

Then, Prince William County Board of Supervisors authorized the creation of a Sustainability Commission and Sustainability Office.  The first step was to hire a consultant to develop the Community Energy and Sustainability Master Plan (CESMP), which was to provide the road map for how the county will reach its climate goals.

If you read the CESMP (which was adopted in 2023) you will see that there are no realistic scenarios that achieve those goals in the stated time frame. “It was found that due to limited span of control, all five goals will not likely be met through County action alone. It is expected that there would be a gap in emissions reductions needed to hit our 2030 target even if all 25 high priority actions are implemented. It is recommended that the actions are implemented to the best of the County’s ability and to evaluate whether or not to bridge the potential remaining emissions reductions gap using high quality carbon offsets in 2030.” Nonetheless, we need to work towards a more sustainable future, even if we cannot meet the goals in the allotted time frame.

The Office of Sustainability’s mission is to integrate environmental sustainability across county government and the community to help meet the needs of a growing and evolving county. Undeterred by the challenge, their work supports the Board of County Supervisors’ vision of meeting current community needs while protecting quality of life and resources for future generations. 

To date, 17 of the plan’s 25 high-priority actions have been initiated, with 10 currently in active implementation. A great journey begins with a single step. Prince William County has begun moving towards our future. 

“We are excited to share Prince William County’s first Environmental Sustainability Annual Report, which highlights our progress in clean energy, sustainable mobility and long-term planning,” said Giulia Manno, Director of the Office of Sustainability. “This report helps our community stay informed, celebrate achievements and identify opportunities to work together for continued progress.”  

Since 2015, more than 3,100 residential solar systems have been installed across Prince William County. The county has also registered more than 7,600 battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Since 2021, the county has installed 85 electric vehicle charging stations at county facilities. In addition, rooftop solar systems have been designed for several county buildings. 

The county is also making progress in protecting natural resources and improving environmental resilience. In early 2025, Prince William County completed the restoration of 4,785 feet along Powell’s Creek in the Montclair community, helping reduce flooding and improve water quality. Additionally, a Bandalong trash collection system installed in Neabsco Creek removed 2,185 pounds of debris in 2025, helping prevent trash from entering the Potomac River. 

“This report reflects our commitment to building a more sustainable and resilient Prince William County,” said County Executive Chris Shorter. “The progress highlighted here shows how we are putting our Strategic Plan into action while continuing to invest in the long-term well-being of our community.”

These are all very small steps compared to the challenges faced in achieving the climate and sustainability goals. The challenge was made more difficult by the vast expansion of approved data center operations in the county. Through 2023, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG)  updated Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory Summaries show that Prince William County’s community-wide net emissions increased by 22% between 2005 and 2023.

Nonetheless, while total emissions rose by 22%, the county experienced a 42% growth in population since 2005. The per-capita climate footprint is shrinking. While individuals may be getting more efficient, the rapid scale of development is outpacing those gains. Emissions from commercial buildings (mostly data centers) and on-road transportation remain the primary contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions.

MWCOG notes that the county’s forests and trees currently sequester approximately 368,000 metric tons of carbon annually which offsets about 7% of emissions. However, the rapid development that the county has been experiencing has reduced the tree cover. The July 2025 Tree Cover Fact Sheet reported a net loss of 1,952 acres of tree cover on developed or developing lands. This was the result of losing 2,311 acres (largely to impervious surfaces like roads and buildings) while only gaining 360 acres through new growth or planting.

The tree canopy in the Metropolitan Washington region as a whole dropped from 51.3% in 2014 to 49.6% in 2023, local data suggests Prince William has consistently remained below the regional average and the MCOG regional goal of 50% canopy coverage. 

The Environmental Impact of Data Centers

At the last meeting of the Potomac Watershed Roundtable Julie Bolthouse, Director of Land Use, at the Piedmont Environmental Council gave a presentation titled "The Environmental Impact of Data Centers.” The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) has extensively documented the environmental impact from data centers, in Virginia, which hosts the world's largest concentration of data centers in the world. I would like to present a few highlights from her talk.

Data Centers are no longer the office parks of the last century that employed lots of people (remember AOL, now long gone). They are now hyperscale behemoths which employ only a handful of people for landscape, security, and a few operators. According to PEC research, the expansion of the data center industry poses significant risks to energy grids, water resources, air quality, and local ecosystems.

This is especially true in Virginia which has three times the mega watts (MW) and square feet of data centers than anywhere else in the nation. Currently, there are about 70 million square feet of data centers now operating in Virginia; however, there are 285 million square feet of data centers that are approved or in the pipeline.

Along with the massive increase in square footage of data centers, is skyrocketing energy demand. In 2025 data centers used 24 Gigawatts (GW) of electricity in Virginia by 2030 data centers are forecast to use 57 GW in Virginia. A gigawatt (GW) is equivalent to the energy generated by a nuclear reactor or gas plant. Dominion Energy of Virginia has received 70 GW of load request and have 48 GW in contracts for power-21 GW of this is in the final stages of contract.

Due to the demand strain, Dominion Energy is providing incremental load. For example, when Dominion Energy receives a request for 300 MW of power, they start the customer with 25 MW and Dominion Energy vamps them up over time.

This all seems wildly out of control and unplanned be each locality only looks at land use. The locality does not look at the power demand or where the power lines will go. More concerning is that the cost of transmission lines and generation is spread amongst all power customers. The old model allocated costs assuming that residential growth is what was driving the growth in power demand, and large customers like data centers receive discounted rates. Of the transmission projects on Dominion Energy’s books:

• $2.4 billion for transmission lines that will provide power only for data centers
• $3.3 billion for transmission lines that will server data centers and other customers
• $1.8 billion for transmission lines that will serve others

Data centers are also impacting the air quality in our region. Data centers rely on massive diesel backup generators for outages. In Loudoun County alone, permits exist for over 4,000 generators with a combined capacity of 11 gigawatts. In all of Virginia there are 10,000 Tier II permitted diesel generators. In Sterling alone, there are 2,000 older Tier II diesel generators. . A PEC-commissioned study found that on-site power emissions could result in up to $99 million annually in health-related damages due to premature mortality and respiratory diseases. This is mostly from PM 2.5 micrograms/m3.

New power plants proposal are also impacting air quality. PJM is modeling that Virginia is going to triple their power generation and that is going to come primarily from gas turbines with data centers installing on-site gas turbines. DEQ recently changed their rules to allow data centers to essentially use their back up generators as peaker plants to avoid tanking down the grid.

Finally, water. Depending on the cooling system, a single data center can consume 3–5 million gallons of water daily, 60%-80% of this water use is consumptive. Julie warns that this usage stresses local watersheds and the Potomac river, especially during drought conditions which we have been experiencing the past few years. In Loudoun, the reclaimed water from the wastewater treatment plant is maxed out at 697 million gallons/day (90% of this is going to data centers). So the Loudoun County data centers draw an additional 952 million gallons of potable water to cool the data centers. While data centers represent only 1-2% of the water drawn from the Potomac River on average, in summer, data centers are 9-12% of the consumptive use of the Potomac River.

The wastewater from data centers contains high levels of salinity and total dissolved solids, corrosion inhibitors, biocides, chlorine, phosphates and other additives. The wastewater treatment plants can’t effectively remove all these contaminants.

The Key Environmental Impacts 

In summary Julie highlights several critical areas where data centers affect the environment:

• Energy Consumption & Grid Strain: This demand from data centers has led Dominion Energy to delay the retirement of coal plants and expand natural gas infrastructure to maintain reliability, threatening state climate and decarbonization goals.
• Water Usage: Depending on the cooling system, a single data center can consume 3–5 million gallons of water daily. This growing water use stresses local watersheds and the Potomac River, especially during drought conditions.
• Air Quality & Public Health: Data centers rely on massive diesel backup generators for outages. These generators increase the small particulate matter in our air.
• The data center buildout converts thousands of acres of agricultural land and forests into impervious surfaces, leading to increased stormwater runoff and pollution in local waterways.
• Local Community Impacts: Proximity to residential areas brings persistent noise pollution from industrial cooling fans and light pollution from 24/7 facility operations.

Prince William County Prefers Concentrated Development

Based on recent approvals and rezonings it is clear that the Prince William Board of Supervisors and Planning Department prefer concentrated development for Prince William County. They rationalize that they can use building techniques to protect the Occoquan Watershed as a substitute for maintaining open wooded areas. This rationalization is based on the belief that concentrated development paired with advanced technological mitigation can manage environmental impacts better than the "status quo" of rural development. I do not believe that they are right.  

The Board and Planning staff have argued that large-scale development allows for "unprecedented levels of environmental protection" that would not occur if the land remained privately owned and developed at lower densities. This is true, but it has served to protect the Occoquan Watershed for all of Northern Virginia.

Supporters, including Supervisor Kenny Boddye, argue that developers can implement specialized stormwater management systems that filter sediment and pollutants more effectively than the natural runoff from a privately owned 5-acre lot. There is no research for this argument either for or against.

Proponents also suggest that low-density rural development is less protected because the county has limited authority to regulate what chemicals (like fertilizers) private homeowners use or to prevent them from clear-cutting their own property. However, there are no restrictions on what chemicals hundreds of individual homeowners can use either. Small lot communities are notorious for their intense fertilization and management of the appearance of the community.

Though high-density approvals often come with proffered conservation easements that legally preserve a portion of the forest in perpetuity, there may be limited benefit to the watershed. The "edge effect" changes the soil moisture and temperature. This kills off sensitive native plants and allows hardy invasives to take over the ground layer. Within a decade, the small area forest has no "recruitment"—meaning no young native trees are growing to replace the old ones and it dies. The proffers contain no allowance for maintaining the forest.  In the Occoquan Watershed, a 50-acre contiguous forest is exponentially more valuable than five 10-acre "preserved" patches surrounded by pavement. The latter will almost certainly succumb to the "choke" within 15 years.

County staff have noted that while wooded areas help with traditional pollutants, "modern" concerns like increasing salinity (from road salt) are regional issues that require infrastructure-based management strategies rather than just land preservation. However, Extensive research, primarily led by the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory (OWML) and published in journals like Nature, confirms a direct link between population growth and rising sodium levels in the Occoquan Reservoir. Average sodium concentrations at the dam have nearly tripled since the 1980s, now frequently exceeding health advisory limits. 

Research shows that for every 100 additional people per km², impervious cover in the watershed increases by 3%. This expansion leads to higher road salt application, with salt spikes occurring even as regional snowfall has decreased by 40% over the last century. In addition, approximately 64% of salt ions in the reservoir originate from the population via reclaimed water. You have more people and you have more salt. Also, research by Bhide et al. (2021) found that roughly 32% of the sodium mass in finished drinking water comes from the treatment plant itself due to chemicals (like sodium hydroxide) added to buffer pH and prevent pipe corrosion. 

The Planning Department's approach often involves "condensing development down" to specific areas, which they believe allows for larger contiguous blocks of undisturbed forest to be saved through cluster development provisions. However, the Planning Department has presented the arguments for the same density of housing on a clustered development for increasing the density of housing by 28 times. The Maple Grove plan for 279 houses naturally creates more total asphalt and roof area than 9 houses that could have been developed on that site by right. The "less impact" argument isn't about the total amount of impact, but about the intensity of impact per person. 

Despite these arguments, several major environmental and regulatory bodies have disputed the idea that these techniques can substitute for natural wooded areas. Fairfax Water & the NVRC have warned that runoff from new high-density sites could negatively affect drinking water for the nearly million residents that rely on the Occoquan Reservoir for their water supply.

Environmental groups note that large-scale development like the could lead to of tons of additional sediment flowing into the reservoir watershed annually and the Chesapeake Bay. Civic associations and community groups argue that approving high-density projects like Hoadly Square within the Occoquan Reservoir Protection Area (ORPA) "chips away" at the protection district right after its adoption.

Stormwater BMP’s -What you need to know

Last Friday the Potomac Watershed Roundtable met in Frying Pan Park in Fairfax, VA. One of the speakers was Allie Wagner, a Water Resource Planner at the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC). Allie was there to introduce us to the “Stormwater Best Management Practice (BMP) Maintenance Guidebook.” Recently updated and released. This guidebook is intended to be a  comprehensive resource developed by the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) to help private property owners, homeowners' associations (HOAs), and business operators manage and maintain stormwater systems effectively.

The primary purpose of the guidebook is to reduce stormwater pollution—the leading cause of degraded local waterways—by ensuring that BMPs like rain gardens and detention ponds are properly maintained. According to the NVRC, property owner awareness of maintenance responsibilities varies, with owners of "resale" homes often unaware of their obligations compared to HOAs or businesses. Owners are typically responsible for maintaining specific features like rain gardens (ensuring 72-hour drainage), permeable pavers (sediment removal), and clearing vegetation from dry/wet ponds.

The guidebook attempts to provide practical, non-regulatory guidance and includes an introduction to how these systems function and why maintenance is critical. Guidance on how to identify problems, such as clogged pipes, erosion, or standing water.  Tools for budgeting routine and non-routine maintenance expenses. And contact information for local government agencies across Northern Virginia's member jurisdictions

The guidebook contains 14 Detailed BMP Fact Sheets for the most common BMP’s including:

• Dry Ponds (Extended Detention) and Wet Ponds (Retention).
• Rain Gardens (Bioretention Facilities) and Vegetated Swales.
• Permeable Pavement, Sand Filters, and Infiltration Trenches.
• Green Roofs and Rain Barrels.

an example from NVRC

According to NVRC, unmaintained BMPs can fail, leading to:         

• Increased discharge of nutrients, sediment, and toxins into the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.
• Potential flooding or erosion on-site.
• Possible violations of local ordinances or maintenance agreements with local governments.

Above and below are examples of two practices. You can find the guide and complete sheets for these practice at this link.

The Heat Island Effect from Data Centers

 (PDF) The data heat island effect: quantifying the impact of AI data centers in a warming world

Marinoni, Andrea et al, The data heat island effect: quantifying the impact of AI data centers in a warming world, March 2026, DOI:10.48550/arXiv.2603.20897 License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

The article below is excerpted from the papers cited above. 

The urban heat island (UHI) effect plays a key role in the impact of anthropogenic activities on climate change and global warming. In a recent paper Andrea Marinoni at the University of Cambridge and their colleagues saw that the amount of energy needed to run a data center had been steadily increasing and was likely to “explode” in the coming years, so they wanted to quantify the impact.

From humble origins as rudimentary storage facilities to their current status as the lifeblood of the Internet and the Cloud, data centers have become foundational pillars supporting our digital lives.  Yet, their energy footprints and building structures are having an impact on climate change.

The researchers utilized 20 years of satellite measurements of land surface temperatures and cross-referenced the data against the locations of more than 8,400 AI data centers. To eliminate the possibility of impact from the urban heat island effect and recognizing that surface temperature could be affected by other factors, the researchers eliminated data centers in or near urban locations (like Loudoun County) and instead focused their investigation on only on data centers away from populated areas.

The goal was to quantify the land surface temperature increase caused by the establishment of an AI hyperscaler in a location, determine the region of influence of this increase; and estimate the population affected by the temperature increase.

from Marinoni, Andrea et al

They found that the average land surface temperature increase across the data centers was 2.07°C in the months after an AI data center started operation. The land surface temperature increase minimum and maximum were 0.3 °C and 9.1 °C, respectively. The 95th percentile of the land surface temperature increase after the AI data centers began operations is between 1.5°C and 2.4°C.

In addition, the researchers found that the impact of land surface temperature increase impacted a very large area and reached up to 10 km distance from the AI hyperscaler facilities. The data heat island effect seems to reduce its intensity to 30% within 7 km around the data centers. It was pointed out in 2023 by Kilgore et al that "Data centers account for 2.5% to 3.7% of global GHG emissions," which exceeds the greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation industry recorded at 2.4%. 

from Marinoni, Andrea et al

The increasing demand for AI-based services, processes and operations is leading to the proliferation of data centers worldwide that are extremely power hungry. This study shows a rather remarkable impact of the AI data centers on their local regions, which was found to be consistent across data centers worldwide and extends for several kilometers around the AI hyperscalers. The consistency, scale and extent of these effects lead the researchers to suggest that data centers are creating local climate zones - that they call the data heat island effect - is real, significant, and may have a non-trivial impact on global warming and climate transformation.

The data heat island effect could have a significant impact on the on planet since  the trends of data center energy consumption are expected to show a steep growth in the foreseeable future. The data heat island effect could become an additional factor in the changing climate, hence having a robust impact on communities at local, regional, and international level.

Review of Interventions to preserve Groundwater

 Global cases of groundwater recovery after interventions | Science

How communities are reversing groundwater depletion: lessons from 67 global success stories | UC Santa Barbara - Bren School of Environmental Science & Management

Global groundwater depletion is accelerating, but is not inevitable | The Current

Scott Jasechko, Global cases of groundwater recovery after interventions. Science 391,1218-1228(2026).DOI:10.1126/science.adu1370

The article below is excerpted from the article cited above and the UC Santa Barbara press releases linked above.

Groundwater supplies about 50% of the drinking water for the people on our planet. In addition, groundwater also supplies 40% of the irrigation water that feeds the people. Groundwater is essential. However, we are using groundwater at an unsustainable rate-faster than it is being recharged. The result is that mankind is depleting groundwater reserves at an accelerating rate.

In 2024 Scott Jasechko, an associate professor in the university’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, and his team at UC Santa Barbara compiled the largest assessment of historical assessment of historical groundwater levels around the world, spanning nearly 1,700 aquifers and 300 million water level measurement. That work presented a picture of dwindling groundwater resources and accelerating declines. But it also found that there are places where groundwater levels have stabilized or recovered. Groundwater declines of the 1980s and ’90s reversed in 16% of the aquifer systems the authors had historical data for. 

That finding served as the basis for the current study which looks at the success stores to understand the strategies that achieved them and might be applicable in other areas. Groundwater is the savings account for our fresh water resources. It is replenished by deposits from rain, snowmelt and surface infiltration. Communities can spend a lot of money building infrastructure to hold water above ground. But if you have the right geology, you can store vast quantities of water underground, which is much cheaper, less disruptive and less dangerous than building dams. The stored groundwater also supports the region’s ecology. Groundwater recharge can store six times more water per dollar than surface reservoirs.

Groundwater recovery can benefit economies and ecosystems. The benefits of groundwater recovery can include (i) halting land subsidence, (ii) slowing seawater intrusion, (iii) reducing drought vulnerability, (iv) restoring groundwater-dependent ecosystems, and (v) improving groundwater accessibility halting land subsidence,

However, there are also downsides to groundwater recovery. In some cases, recovering groundwater levels have introduced new challenges, such as (i) intensified flood hazards, (ii) compromised building stability, (iii) heightened liquefaction risks, (iv) degraded agricultural soils, and (v) increased pollution exposure

Right now, groundwater is being overdrawn. We can address these by enacting policies and creating infrastructure to reduce the demand on groundwater. Alternative water sources can offset groundwater demand or even be used to recharge the groundwater aquifer. The current study tries to organize 67 unique combination of factors to identify trends. They found two-thirds of the cases involved interventions from multiple categories, but finally broke the strategies into three categories.

Alternative water supplies

81% of the groundwater success stories included an alternative water source that helped offset groundwater demands. Professor Jasechko suspects part of this strategy’s appeal is that it requires the least behavioral change, the communities did not have to reduce total water use. But accessing alternative supplies is often expensive and can end up displacing the issue to another location.

Policy and market interventions

In contrast, policy changes benefit from low overhead and energy costs. They also most directly target the behaviors that led to drawdown in the first place. However, they often have major impacts on local economies that have relied on groundwater use for a long time.

Artificial groundwater recharge

Groundwater recharge can eliminate the need to reduce pumping, but the water needs to come from somewhere, and getting it into the aquifer requires energy. In addition, it potentially introduces contaminants into the aquifer.

Dr. Jasechko summarized his findings among the 67 cases of groundwater recovery reviewed into 10 themes. These include (i) the prevalence of cases involving multiple interventions, (ii) the high number of cases involving alternative water sources, (iii) reductions in pumping in some cases, (iv) the importance of sound implementation and enforcement strategies, (v) the possibility for groundwater recovery to begin shortly after some interventions, (vi) the potential upsides to gradual policy implementation, (vii) spatial variability in groundwater recovery trends, (viii) the impermanence of groundwater recovery, (ix) the importance of considering groundwater quality, and (x) direct and indirect impacts of climate variability on groundwater levels.

Jasechko et al

First, two-thirds of the groundwater recovery cases involve two or more of the three types of interventions (i.e., alternative water supplies, policy or market changes, and artificial recharge). Most (81%) groundwater recovery cases involve access to alternative water sources to offset groundwater demands. These alternative water sources can be from nearby surface water,  from recycled municipal water, from interbasin surface water transfers, or from reductions in upstream river diversions to enable more river water to reach a depleted aquifer farther downstream.

Groundwater recovery often coincides with reduced groundwater withdrawals. In some cases, groundwater withdrawals declined after policy . In other cases, groundwater withdrawals declined after the shutdown or relocation of industries or the reduction in irrigated acreage as cultivated lands were urbanized.

The magnitude of groundwater recovery can vary widely within a given area. Further, groundwater recovery is not always ubiquitous, with some monitoring wells recording groundwater storage increases but others capturing continued declines. Ground subsidence from excessive groundwater withdrawal was not reversed, it was only slowed or stalled.

Groundwater-level trends in shallower unconfined aquifers were found to differ from deeper confined aquifers because shallower and deeper aquifers often have different storage coefficients and different rates of groundwater recharge and groundwater withdrawals. The examples discussed in the paper (especially the detail provided on Be

This study is not a guarantee that any particular intervention will work elsewhere. It does not perform causal inference, but it provides what Dr. Jasechko calls a "menu of options" for resource managers, backed by documented outcomes from real-world cases across six continents. Dr. Jasechko’s collaborator, UC Santa Barbara professor Debra Perrone, is now working to build a comprehensive database of all locations where interventions have been attempted, including those that failed, which would enable more systematic analysis of what works and why.

Test Your Well Annually

Private wells are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act; the homeowner is entirely responsible for monitoring water safety.  Many pollutants that can impact your health, such as Nitrates and E. coli, have no taste, smell, or color. An annual water test acts as a "health check-up" for your well, helping to identify problems early. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the CDC, the Virginia Department of Health and various other organizations recommend annual testing, but most homeowners do not. There is no requirement in Virginia. I test my well every year, and the Virginia Household Water Quality Program run annually by the Extension Office is one of the cheapest ways to get it done.  Judging by the number of people who participate in the clinic each year (a hundred or so out of 16,000 of well owners in Prince William County) most people do not test their well regularly. You should.

 Last Wednesday morning following the instructions from the Extension Office, I collected water samples from my kitchen sink and put the sample bottles in the refrigerator. Then after having coffee and feeding the pets, I drove the samples (in an insulated lunch pack on ice) to the Extension Office in Manassas. Once a year the Virginia Cooperative Extension in Prince William County holds a well water testing clinic where water samples are tested for: iron, manganese, nitrate, lead, arsenic, fluoride, sulfate, pH, total dissolved solids, hardness, sodium, copper, total coliform bacteria and E. Coli bacteria all for the low cost of $70. Though you missed the clinic this year, you can email    and get your name added to the notification list. Trish Westenbroek is doing an excellent job of coordinating the program and sending out reminders, so email PWestenbroek@pwcgov.org  and ask to be put on the list and you will get a notification next winter to sign up.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates public water systems, the responsibility for ensuring the safety and consistent supply of water from a private well belongs to the well owner-in this case me. These responsibilities should include knowing the well’s history and planning for equipment replacement, testing the water quality annually (or more often as needed), and having the well system and its components inspected regularly by a well driller licensed well-service company. 

In Virginia installation of private wells is regulated by the Department of Health, responsible for approving the location of a well, inspecting the well after construction to verify proper grouting and adequate water yield, maintaining records of the well driller’s log, verifying the most basic potability of water by requiring at a minimum bacterial testing after completion. Then you are on your own to do what you deem best.

If your home has a drinking water well that is contaminated, it could significantly impact your health and the value of the property. When you buy a home lenders require that a well be tested for coliform bacteria contamination, nothing more. For many homeowners this was the only time their well was ever tested. Total coliform bacteria is always present in manure and sewage, but is also present in soil and vegetation and surface water. The presence of coliform bacteria can mean that surface water is getting into the well either directly through a failing casing or grouting or improper construction or well cap or by other means. Absence of coliform bacteria only means that water is not contaminated by septic and surface runoff, but the water might be contaminated from other sources.

Due to its protected location underground, most groundwater tends to be clean and free from pollution. Typically, the deeper the well the less likely is it to be contaminated; however, there are a number of threats to drinking water: improperly disposed of chemicals (pesticides and oil poured down the drain of a home with a septic system); animal wastes; pesticides; human wastes (that nearby septic system); wastes buried underground or leaking fuel tank; and naturally-occurring substances can all contaminate drinking water and make it unsuitable for drinking or make the water unpleasant to drink. Homes built on former disposal sites- farm dumps, landfills or former military operations are particularly susceptible to contamination. Former agricultural properties should be tested for pesticides, fuels and solvents because farmers often have fuel tanks and repaired farm equipment with solvents that were improperly disposed of over the years. Hopefully, all those tests were done before you bought the home (I know I did).

 The nightmare scenario is what happened in Sterling, Virginia. The short story is that for twenty- or thirty-years homeowners in that community in Loudoun County were drinking water contaminated with TCE and its degradation products. The homes had been built on an old landfill and back in 1988 the Loudoun County Department of Health and the EPA had found traces of TCE, its degradation products and pesticides in three residential wells, but because the contamination was below the regulated maximum contaminant level (MCL) no further investigation was carried out. Apparently, the oddity of finding a solvent in groundwater in a residential community did not immediately prompt further investigation. The water was within safe limits and thus was fine.

However, the water in the neighborhood was not fine. In 2005, 68 more wells (in the community) were tested by the Health Department. “Forty-five wells tested positive for TCE; 17 of these wells contained concentration of TCE above the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 5 micrograms per liter (mcg/L) while 28 wells contained TCE, but below the MCL.”  The site was declared a CERCLA (Superfund) site in 2008. Between 1988 and 2005 no testing was done on the individual homeowner wells. The water was consumed by the young and old and the homes were bought and sold. If your home had been declared within a Superfund site, it is very likely that the value of the home would be impacted.

Everything that is known about the groundwater in Prince William County is because a study of the groundwater was performed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in 1991 to study the extent of TCE contamination from the Superfund site in Manassas. They did not test every inch of the county nor look for other contaminants in the groundwater. Their study was designed to find the extent of the TCE contamination plume and where else the contamination might have spread because when you test groundwater and its flow it often surprises.

To be prudent and smart you need to test a well for likely sources of contamination. When I was working as an Environmental Engineer, the biggest challenge was to adequately research the history of a property and then test the soil and groundwater for contamination in the areas most likely to be contaminated. Testing is expensive, so it is virtually impossible to fully test soil and groundwater for everything, and it is very easy to miss the contamination if the study is not planned properly and you do not understand the specific geology. With substances like PFAS, the sensitivity of the tests has increased tremendously as has the knowledge that health can be impacted by extremely low levels of PFOS and PFOA- in the single digit parts per trillion.

When buying a home with a well, you do not have any of this information or resources available to you. Neighbors can be useful or just have no understanding of environmental and groundwater issues and tell you nonsense they’ve heard. If someone asked me about groundwater in my community or my opinion about any specific well, I would tell them, but they would not know my level of expertise. While there are some good historical records available for industrial and commercial properties there is very little information available for residential properties. The department of health often has some useful information about water quality in the county and septic systems but rarely has any water analysis data available. Though, it was a Department of Health employee who originally found the Prince William County TCE contamination.  

Your best option is to do a broad scan of the well water quality. There are screening packages available from U.S. EPA certified laboratories like  National Testing Laboratories that screen water wells for all the primary and secondary contaminants in the Safe Drinking Water Act. The WaterCheck with pesticides package from National Testing Laboratories is a broad stroke test, testing the water for 103 items including Bacteria (Total Coliform and E-Coli), 19 heavy metals and minerals including lead, iron, arsenic and copper (many which are naturally occurring, but can impact health); 6 other inorganic compounds including nitrates and nitrites (can indicate fertilizer residue or animal waste); 5 physical factors including pH, hardness, alkalinity; 4 Trihalomethanes (THMs) and 47 Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) including Benzene, Methyl Tert-Butyl Ether (MTBE) and Trichloroethene (TCE). The pesticide option adds 20 pesticides, herbicides and PCBs.  This testing can be done for a few hundred dollars. I am still waiting to find an affordable and accurate PFAS screen and test, but I’m afraid I will need to wait for the knowledge about potential contaminants to the groundwater and testing to get there.  Prince William county has talked about doing a groundwater study for about a decade now and we’re still not there.   

I’ve done that kind of “full analysis” on my well a few times. These days I test my well annually in the annual water quality clinic sponsored by the Extension office. Groundwater quality is driven by geology, well construction and condition, nearby sources of groundwater contamination, and any water treatment devices and the condition and materials of construction of the household plumbing. Year to year, outside sources of groundwater contamination are not likely to change except with changes in land use. Thus, it is not necessary to test for industrial contaminants every year. To ensure my drinking water remains safe it is important to maintain my well (I replaced the cap six years ago when I replaced the pump), test it regularly and understand your system and geology. I do not have any water treatment in my house; I drink the water just as it is from the ground. If however, you have water treatment equipment in your home you might want to test the water before and after the treatment equipment each year to make sure you have the right equipment for your water and that it continues working properly.

Salt the Fingerprint of Mankind

Inland freshwater salinization historically was once thought to be a problem only in areas with arid and semi-arid climates, poor agricultural drainage practices, sodic soils and saline shallow groundwater. Certainly, when I was in school that is what we were taught. Today, inland freshwater salinization is on the rise across many cold and temperate regions of the United States.  

Inland freshwater salinization is particularly notable in the densely populated Northeast and Mid-Atlantic like here in Northern Virginia, and agricultural Midwest regions of the country. It turns out that salt is the fingerprint of mankind. We have disrupted the Earth's natural salt cycle in every activity from the first seeds of agriculture to modern high-tech living. The presence of mankind is marked by salt- the fundamental change in the chemistry of the world’s inland waters and soils.

The first mark of this fingerprint appeared in ancient Mesopotamia, the Cradle of Civilization. To feed growing populations, the Sumerian people of Mesopotamia (Modern day Iraq) engineered massive irrigation systems for their arid lands.  They used flood irrigation and this over-irrigation of their caused the water table to rise, wicking naturally occurring underground salts to the surface via capillary action.

 As water evaporated, it left behind a salt crust. Between 2100 BC and 1700 BC, soil salinity forced a shift from wheat to the more salt-tolerant barley, eventually leading to agricultural collapse and the migration of 60% of the population. This pattern repeated itself across other civilizations across the globe.

As humanity expanded, and our population grew, so did the  ways that the salt footprint that traveled with our communities grew- through intensified land use and waste disposal.  In regions like Australia, clearing deep-rooted native trees for shallow-rooted crops stopped the natural drawdown of groundwater, allowing saline water tables to rise and drown the soil in salt. The land application of manure and modern fertilizers adds significant salt ions (like potassium and chloride) to the soil, which eventually leach into groundwater and rivers.

Mankind has a taste for salt.  Wastewater from growing urban centers carries concentrated salts from our diets.  This "fingerprint" is becoming even more indelible as we more widely adapt potable water reuse—recycling wastewater directly back into our taps. While recycling is a necessity to supplement supply for regions becoming more water scares or increasing population, it creates a salt loop that is difficult and expensive to break. Because traditional wastewater treatment cannot remove salts every time we use water, we add salt—from our diets, soaps, and water softeners. When that water is recycled and sent back to homes, those salt levels naturally rise for each cycle. To strip this salt out, cities must use Reverse Osmosis (RO). However, RO is energy-intensive and produces a highly concentrated "brine" waste that is difficult to dispose of without harming local ecosystems.

The scientists at the Occoquan Watershed Laboratory believe that the sodium in UOSA’s wastewater comes from a variety of sources -watershed deicers, water treatment processes (both household and Fairfax Water), household products, commercial and industrial discharges, drinking water treatment, and wastewater treatment. On the basis of data provided by UOSA they estimate that 46.5% of the daily sodium mass load in UOSA’s reclaimed water is from chemicals used in water and wastewater treatment (for pH adjustment, chlorination, dichlorination and odor control), a single permitted discharge from the Micron Semiconductor facility and human excretion (our diets are salty). That still leaves 53.5% of the salt, and its source remains unknown.  

The salt levels are also rising in the rivers and streams that provide water to our region. In the modern era, the salt fingerprint has become more complex, involving a "chemical cocktail" of salts used for safety and comfort. For example, there is salt in soaps, cleaners, and water treatment chemicals.  To ensure winter safety, millions of tons of chloride-based salts are spread on roads annually. This salt doesn't just disappear; it migrates into lakes and streams, where it can persist for decades.  

In many regions, household water softeners are the largest source of chloride to wastewater treatment plants, and also to the groundwater. In Prince William County water softeners in homes connected to public water supply are not tracked. However, the VA Tech tracks water softeners used by well owners. In Prince William there about 16,000 private wells and over 40% are estimated to have water softeners. Each one of these water softeners discharges 800-1,000 pounds of salt.  This salt is discharged directly into freshwater ecosystems.

Globally, human-caused salinization affects an estimated 2.5billion acres of soil—an area the size of the United States. It isn't just a local agricultural nuisance; it is a chronic environmental "syndrome" that mobilizes other toxins like lead and mercury, threatens drinking water, and permanently alters the chemistry of our planet's freshwater.

EIA Forecast Growth in Fossil Fuel Electricity Generation due to Data Centers

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Electricity demand has been rising steadily  after nearly two decades of remaining essentially flat. Between 2020 and 2025, U.S. electricity demand, as measured by net energy for load, grew about 1.7% annually compared with 0.1% annual growth between 2005 and 2019. EIA expects U.S. electricity use to grow by 1% this year and 3% in 2027. The driving factor behind this surge is increasing demand from data centers.

from EIA

In the Mid-Atlantic, the PJM Interconnection grid is facing "a capacity crunch of epic proportions" as data center demand grows by approximately 5 gigawatts (GW) annually through 2030. This surge is centered in Virginia’s "Data Center Alley" but is rapidly expanding into Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Continued development of these “hyperscale” computing facilities and growth from expanded industrial use of electricity are likely to continue driving growth in U.S. electricity demand in the near term.

When EIA explored the potential impact of faster-than-expected electricity demand growth, on the forecast generating capacity the February 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) they identified growth in demand exceeding growth in generating capacity.

Using the latest forecasts published by grid EIA forecast that U.S. electricity load will increase by 1.9% in 2026 and 2.5% in 2027. The EIA projects annual load growth in ERCOT to average 10% between 2025 and 2027. Demand growth  in PJM is forecast to be more moderate. Demand in the PJM region is expected to grow by an average of 3% annually through 2027.

This demand growth is also expected to have an impact on prices. Wholesale prices at the ERCOT North hub are forecast to increase by 45% in 2026 and could reach an increase of 79% in 2027. In PJM where capacity pricing was capped,  the allowed rise could lead to retail price increases of over 15% (over the current approved increases) consumers. ERCOT manages the grid covering most of Texas, and PJM manages the grid covering all or part of 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia) and Washington, DC.)

Grid managers are responsible for regulating the interconnection of new generating capacity and new large load customers to ensure that future electricity demand can be accommodated by the available supply of power. If demand were to grow faster than supply, the stresses on the grid would be evident in spikes in wholesale power prices or even periods of rolling blackouts or in Virginia times of the data centers stepping off the grid and operating on backup generators.

EIA focused on the potential for faster-than-expected growth in U.S. electricity demand in the near term along with the potential effects on electricity generation and prices. The results indicate that most regions can accommodate higher-than-expected electricity demand growth, but the modeled price effects in ERCOT and PJM highlight some of the challenges of load increases in the near term.

PJM region's growth is driven by massive "hyperscale" developments that require constant, high-density power.  Home to 35% of the world’s hyperscale data centers. Amazon (AWS) maintains the largest footprint in the region and continues to expand in Northern Virginia. Google and Meta also haver large-scale projects underway in Virginia.

To Bloom or Not to Bloom

DC Water is marketing its EPA-certified “Exceptional Quality” Class A Biosolids as a retail soil additive called Bloom. Biosolids are merely the sludge that comes out of a wastewater treatment plant. DC Water is not the first wastewater utility or DC area utility to turn its wastewater biosolids into a soil additive for home gardeners and crops for human consumption. The question is, should we use it.

Bloom typically contains PFOA and PFOS at levels around 3.68 ppb and 15.5 ppb, respectively. Though Blue Plaines argues that levels are reportedly thousands of times lower than in food packaging and even lower than household dust, that argument is an old one. PFOA and PFOS have been largely phased out of U.S. manufacturing for over a decade and have finally been phased out of food packaging by the FDA revoking their authorization for food contact. It is true that they are still frequently found in household products and the dust they create comes from  legacy items and imported goods.

Because these are "forever chemicals," they do not break down. Items purchased years ago continue to shed PFOA and PFOS into your home environment today.  Older stain-resistant carpets are the single largest source of PFOA and PFOS in house dust. As the fibers wear down, they release micro-particles that settle on floors. Upholstered furniture treated with legacy stain-repellents continue to off-gas and shed these specific chemicals as the fabric ages. 

U.S. companies have moved to "short-chain" replacements (like GenX or PFBS), many international manufacturers still use PFOA and PFOS in their processes. Buy American. Another problem area is after-market waterproofing sprays or "stain-guard" products, especially those sold via online marketplaces from international sellers, may still utilize legacy PFAS formulas. 

Despite the phase-outs, environmental testing as of 2026 continues to show that PFOA and PFOS remain the most common PFAS found in indoor dust.  In recent studies, PFOA was detected in 97% of house dust samples, often at the highest median concentrations compared to newer replacement chemicals.  PFOA and PFOS levels in household dust have generally declined following their phase-out from U.S. manufacturing, they are still detected in nearly all homes. Modern concentrations typically range from 1 ppb to 50 ppb (parts per billion). According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  Residents who have lived in their homes longer or clean less frequently are the homes that tend to have higher accumulated levels of PFOA and PFOS in their dust. 

A recent study does demonstrate a link between PFOA and PFOS and infant mortality. The study by Baluja, R. et al. at the University of Arizona was done in 2025 and titled PFAS-contaminated drinking water harms infants, found that mothers whose drinking water came from wells downstream of PFAS-contaminated sites had a 191% higher first-year infant mortality rate.  The study highlights the danger of direct ingestion of contaminated water, which resulted in 611 additional infant deaths per 100,000 births. These sites were contaminated by industrial sources, landfills, or firefighting activities—sources often associated with much higher PFAS concentrations than typical municipal biosolids. 

Bloom meets Maryland’s most restrictive limit of 20 ppb for PFOA or PFOS, allowing for unrestricted use. Research from the University of Arizona (the same institution as the Baluja study) suggests that PFAS in municipal biosolids like Bloom does not significantly move through the soil into groundwater. Regulators consider the risks associated with Bloom soil amendment as low due to the concentrations and exposure pathways involved. 

Using a biosolid like Bloom does create a localized exposure point for chemicals that the federal government is otherwise trying to eliminate from the consumer cycle. The FDA's recent action eliminates what was once a "primary source of dietary exposure" (e.g., fast-food wrappers, microwave popcorn bags). By using biosolids, you are essentially importing these legacy chemicals back into your immediate living environment.

PFOA and PFOS are "forever chemicals" that do not break down. Once added to your garden, they remain in the soil and can be taken up by leafy greens and fruit vegetables, which research shows have higher bioaccumulation rates compared to root vegetables.

Also, children playing in gardens are at higher risk of "incidental ingestion" of soil and dust. While the concentrations in Bloom are low, they represent an avoidable addition of toxins that are no longer present in your take-out containers, non-stick cooking pans, new furniture and carpeting. The risks specifically associated with Bloom soil amendment are generally considered low due to the concentrations and exposure pathways involved, but we are trying to eliminate these specific chemicals from our homes and bodies. I see no reason to add extremely low concentrations to my life.  

If we look at the numbers we've discussed for PFOA in  Bloom is about ~3.68 ppb (ppb) and in average household dust is around ~8.6 ppb (ppb). This means, based on median samples, household dust can actually have a higher concentration of PFOA than the Bloom soil amendment. However, a child playing in a garden might ingest or inhale far more dirt/dust than they would from a clean indoor floor. In this I am very risk adverse.  

DC Water hosted a very informative Webinar last year that you might want to watch to help you make the decision that is right for you. 

 

The Kline Property, Again

The Kline Farm property encompasses a bit more than 86 acres and is generally located south and southeast of the intersection of Prince William Parkway and Liberia Avenue, and north of Buckhall Road. The property is located in a transitional area of the county that is adjacent to the City of Manassas. Stanley Martin has come forward with yet another proposal for the development of the site that is going to the Planning Commission on Wednesday. 

I will leave the description of the newest plan to others and concern myself with the issue I care most about, water. Residents of the abutting Hynson Knolls community, homeowners bordering Buckhall Road and homes along Lake Jackson Drive rely on private wells for water. Stanley Martin Homes has proffered to engage an environmental professional to perform a well yield and limited water quality test on any lawfully operating household water supply well for residential property located within 800 feet from the Kline property line to establish a baseline for the closest wells. Those well owners may request a re-evaluation of their well if a negative impact is suspected six month after the substantial completion of the site grading. Not good enough.

Private wells draw their water from groundwater. Geology, climate, weather, land use and many other factors determine the quality and quantity of the groundwater available. Within Prince William County Virginia there are four distinct geologic provinces: (1) the Blue Ridge, (2) the Culpeper Basin, (3) the Piedmont, and (4) the Coastal Plain. The U.S. Geological Survey divides the four geologic provinces of the county into seven hydrogeologic groups based on the presence and movement of the ground water calling them groups: A, B, B1, C, D, E and F. Almost 30 years ago the U.S. Geological Survey studied the groundwater systems within Prince William County. You can review that report if you wish to see the entirety it is by Nelms and Brokman.

Previously, consultants hired by Stanley Martin Homes identify the site as located within Hydrogeological Group E. The Kline Farm and vicinity are within a fractured bedrock aquifer in which groundwater availability and flow are controlled by fractures and joints within the rock. Hydrogeologic group E consists of metasedimentary, meta-volcanic, and other metamorphic rocks. Rocks within hydrogeologic group E tend to have poor to moderate water-bearing potential, and thin- to thick cover of overburden. Ground-water storage tends to be predominantly in the overburden which is typically relatively granular and porous. This is a water table aquifer separate from but hydraulically connected to the underlying bedrock aquifer. According to that USGS report by Nelms and Brockman, some of the poorest yielding wells are located in hydrogeologic group E. Because of the local geology care should be taken to ensure that the existing homes are not impacted by the development.

The fracture trace analysis performed by Stanley Martin Homes’ consultant (using 1978 data) found a predominant west-northwest to east-southeast regional fracture orientation; however, there was a notable but less prominent southwest to northeast regional fracture orientation also present. The groundwater flow in Prince William county is generally to the east-southeast, but there is considerable variation and surprises in the flow as documented by monitoring at several cleanup sites in the county and suggested by the fracture analysis.

Wells within a quarter of a mile of construction are at the highest risk for reduced water volume. However, excavation and blasting can open fractures in the bedrock and change groundwater flow. Groundborne vibrations from heavy equipment in loose, sandy soils, vibrations as low as 0.1 in/sec can cause "dynamic settlement" (soil compaction) at greater distances, potentially leading to well casing failure or loss of water in the overburden.

While direct sediment influx often happens due to runoff from the construction site, changes in groundwater flow paths from excavation or blasting can redirect contaminants toward a well from a "significant distance" away. Also, blasting can fracture the bedrock, which might cause a structural collapse in unstable geological zones.

Development of the site can impact groundwater recharge and well yield over the long term. Grading and the clearing of the land increase surface runoff and reduce the amount of water that can soak into the ground, which over a number of years (or decades) may deplete groundwater. Cutting into the earth for foundations can intersect and redirect the groundwater flow that had historically fed the wells.

Vibrations can shake loose rock particles or sediment within the well, leading to "turbid" (cloudy) or brown water in the short term. In addition, runoff from grading sites often contains fuel, oil, or cement, which can infiltrate the groundwater supply. Heavy grading and machinery permanently compact the soil, reducing its natural ability to absorb and filter precipitation even in areas that remain unpaved.

Suburban/ urban development introduces "chemical cocktails" into the groundwater, including road salts (chlorides), heavy metals from automobiles, and nutrients from lawn fertilizers. The installation of utility lines, and underground water and sewer infrastructure can create zones of high permeability- a pathway of least resistance if you will- allowing contaminants to travel much faster and further through the soil than they naturally would.

The proffer Stanley Martin is offering to effectively the first line of homes may not include enough area to ensure no impact. The U.S. EPA standard for determining impact is a greater radius and begins at a quarter of a mile, is 2.0 miles for class II groundwater under the EPA’s Groundwater Protection Strategy under RCRA, and is 4 miles for CERCLA. At a minimum defaults to 1/4 acre in most circumstances. The scope to testing should be defined and include all primary and secondary contaminants regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, The static water level, and the water well yield test. (Make sure they are not testing the pump yield.).

Finally, depletion of groundwater can be a very slow but real process takes years before homeowners notice impact to their wells. Large-scale projects need to install "sentinel wells" at a minimum at the corners of the project to monitor groundwater levels during and after construction. These wells should meet the U.S. Geological Survey standards for groundwater monitoring wells and be turned over to the USGS to be incorporated into their monitoring network. Appropriate financial arrangements should be made with the USGS.

Water Bankruptcy in Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is facing water bankruptcy. Without significant rainfall (30 inches this summer), Corpus Christi is headed for a “water emergency” by fall and will reach a point next year where city supply can no longer meet demand. Corpus Christi with reach  "Day Zero” the specific day a city's municipal water supply is projected to run out . On this day, authorities must shut off taps to homes and businesses, leaving residents to collect a limited daily water ration. Though, Corpus Christi actually has no operational ability to do this.

Residents have been living under Stage 3 water restrictions since December 2024. These restrictions ban lawn watering and limit most outdoor water use to specific days and hours. City officials have warned that a formal water emergency could be declared later this year. This emergency stage would require mandatory reductions not only for residents, but also for major industrial and commercial water users.

from City of Corpus Christi

A NASA analysis released in January showed satellite images comparing October 2021 to October 2025 highlighting the shrinkage in both Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi, the two primary water sources for more than half a million residents across the Coastal Bend.

from NASA

According to NASA, Choke Canyon Reservoir dropped from 47 % capacity in 2021 to just 11% in 2025. Lake Corpus Christi fell from 87% to 14% over the same period. Combined storage fell to 10 % as of January 20, 2026. As of March 13^th, 2026, the combined storage levels of Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi are at 8.7% according to the City of Corpus Christi water dashboard.

City officials also noted that portions of that remaining water may not be fully usable due to sediment accumulation and arsenic that can damage filtration and treatment systems. A regional drought that has slowly intensified over several years has contributed to the problem, but according to an article published in Inside Climate News, two large industrial users in recent years have drained the reservoirs.

Exxon’s plastic plant started operations in 2022 and consumes 25 million gallons of water per day. This water use was approved despite the region’s water plan projecting that the region would exceed water supply.  Corpus Christi then approved another 6 million gallons of water a day to Steel Dynamics, which then built a steel mill in the area and came online a few years ago.

There really was not enough water, but Corpus Christi had been discussing desalination for years. In 2016 many local politicians and staff traveled to Israel where they toured the world’s largest seawater desalination plant and met with Israeli officials to discuss desalination.

Later that year, an industry group hosted an event in Corpus Christi. They proposed desalination plant they would produce 10 million gallons per day, cost $140 million and take two years to build, the presentation said. It would begin supplying water by the start of 2023. The Corpus Christi City Council was on board, but only preliminary proposals were produced. By 2020 the size of the proposed plant had doubled.  In the beginning of 2024, Corpus Christi City Council produced a new cost estimate the proposed desalination plant of about $550 million to produce 30 million gallons of freshwater per day. A subsequent cost estimate put the project at nearly $760 million. Then in July 2025 the cost estimate was raised to $1.2 billion and still no plans or drawings were generated. Two months later, Corpus Christi City Council voted to cancel the project . For more details read the excellent Inside Climate New article and the City of Corpus Christi water news.

Meanwhile, the City of Corpus Christi under threat from Governor Abbott to take over their water operations has rolled out a series of long-term measures, including the development of wells, the purchase of groundwater rights, and evaluations of future desalination capacity. None of which seem likely to meet demand in time.

Following the Inside Climate News article publication, Corpus Christi officials denied immediate "Day Zero" scenarios.  The situation, driven by a 4 year-long drought and high industrial demand, has prompted new modeling efforts that are suggesting that indeed critical, low-level water conditions could emerge this year. There simply is not enough water.

Corpus Christi is bracing itself for a level one water emergency where the city’s plans call for an immediate 25% curtailment of water consumption. The city has not yet determined how they would implement it. Also, Climate News reported that the region’s largest industrial users, which collectively consume most of the the region’s water, remain exempt from emergency curtailment. The city denies that the industrial users are exempt, but that remains to be clarified. These multi-billion-dollar refineries, petrochemical plants and liquified natural gas facilities are designed to run at a steady rate and can’t simply throttle down production in accordance with water availability. Water is consumed primarily in cooling towers to prevent excessive heating and explosions. Not really something you want to throttle back.

There is No Resilience for Private Wells

There are over 50,000 residents of Prince William County who depend entirely on groundwater for their water supply. In all it's planning and spending the Prince William County government has entirely ignored their needs and right and interest. Sustainability of groundwater supply is not understood or considered in any decision of the Planning Department or the Board of County Supervisors. They are stealing our water and our future and ignoring our rights and needs. 

The "public" groundwater systems managed by Prince William Water is the Evergreen & Bull Run Mountain System . This system serves approximately 2,000 residents and lacks redundancy. As the local water table slowly drops due to the "delayed debt" of 1990s development, the entire neighborhood faces simultaneous shortage.  

Prince William Water has spent millions on the Bull Run Mountain Well Upgrades to drill deeper and interconnect these systems. This is an engineering attempt to buy "robustness" because the natural "adaptability" of the aquifer has been stripped away by increasing deforestation, development and use.

There is other groundwater use that is essential to the county. There are  an estimated 16,000 Private Wells (serving about 50,000 residents) in the county.  These are individual wells owned by homeowners, primarily in the former Rural Crescent and mid county areas.

• Scale of Problem: These represent 16,000 individual points of failure.
• The Resilience Crisis: These residents have zero federal or county safety net. As the loss of tree cover and increasing impervious cover prevents recharge groundwater, the water level in private wells will slowly drop and depending on geology may go dry. Once a private well fails, the "rapidity" of recovery is non-existent. The homeowner bears the full cost (often $15,000–$30,000) to drill deeper. With a even higher cost to connect of public water supply if feasible. There are large areas of the county where there is no easy access to water mains.
• The Data Gap: There are only two groundwater monitoring wells in the county and only one of them is a relevant monitoring well (49V) for this entire region, these 16,000 homeowners are "flying blind." They are the first to feel the "savings account" hitting zero, but they are the last to be reflected in county infrastructure planning.
• The county has failed to track the incidence of well failure, or permits to drill deeper. They remain willfully ignorant of the condition of the water supply for 50,000 residents. 

Groundwater is not only the source of drinking water for all private and public wells, it is  also the savings account for all rivers and streams. The county's rivers and streams feed the Occoquan Reservoir.  Maintaining natural open areas provides groundwater recharge. Increasing impervious cover levels increases stormwater runoff and reduces groundwater recharge. The groundwater is essential as the base flow to the streams and rivers that feed the Occoquan Reservoir during the dry months and serves as free water storage. As the private wells begin to respond to development the rivers and streams will become seasonal an then ephemeral. 

Groundwater is the moisture and water that exists in the spaces between rocks, the pores in the soil and fractures in the geology-the invisible portion of the water cycle. Groundwater is renewed through precipitation infiltrating into the ground. Though there is a seasonal aspect to rainfall, it can be extracted year-round provided that there is adequate replenishment. Groundwater can be extracted indefinitely and can be robust in the face of drought. However, groundwater is not unlimited.

Increase the amount of groundwater extracted beyond what is replenished, then slowly over time the aquifer is used up, the water level falls and wells go dry. Reduce groundwater recharge by eliminating forested areas and replacing them with compacted soils (lawns that need to be watered), pavement, buildings and over time the aquifer will become exhausted.

We do know that groundwater availability varies by location even within Prince William County (Nelms and Richardson, 1990) . Precipitation and soil type determines how much the shallower groundwater is recharged annually. The water level in a groundwater well usually fluctuates naturally during the year, but as seen in the chart above, it has been very slowly decreasing. Groundwater levels tend to be highest in the early spring in response to winter snow melt and spring rainfall when the groundwater is recharged. Groundwater levels begin to fall in May and typically continue to decline during summer as plants and trees use the available shallow groundwater to grow and streamflow draws water.

However, groundwater levels can be affected by development. Land use changes that increases impervious cover from roads, pavement and buildings does two things. It reduces the open area for rain and snow to seep into the ground and percolate into the groundwater and the impervious surfaces cause stormwater velocity to increase preventing water from having enough time to percolate into the earth, increasing storm flooding and preventing recharge of groundwater from occurring. Slowly, over time, this can reduce groundwater supply and the water table falls.

Changes begin to take place in a watershed in response to development almost immediately, but the true impact is seen in the long-term as groundwater is drawn down and not recharged fully. Very slowly, the groundwater level begins to decrease. This These ecological and physical changes emerge over 20 to 50 years. Replacing 35–50% of a forested area with impervious surfaces permanently alters how water moves through the landscape causing profound hydrological and ecological shifts that take years to be seen.

It has been over twenty years since the last big building boom in the county. What changes we are seeing (formerly perennial streams drying out in the summer, water levels falling in the Evergreen Bull Run system) are the cumulative changes from building during the 1990’s -2007. That impact will be followed by the impact from the current building boom.

Challenges to Water Resilience in Prince William County

 

Changes to the comprehensive plan, the increased rate of construction, changing climate and land use conspire to undermine the resiliency of our water system in Prince William County and the greater Washington DC metropolitan area.

Global Water Bankruptcy: A Warning

In January 2026, the United Nations University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) released its "Global Water Bankruptcy" report. The report warns that certain regions have moved past temporary water stress and entered irreversible water bankruptcy, meaning a permanent inability to return to former water levels the exact opposite to water resiliency. Humanity is depleting its water savings—groundwater, lakes, ecosystems, and glaciers—but can no longer rely solely on annual precipitation to supply its communities. Are we in the Washington Metropolitan Area headed for the same fate?

First What is a Resilient Water Supply

In general, a resilient water supply is the ability of a water system—including its infrastructure, management, and natural source water—to withstand, adapt to, and quickly recover from shocks and stresses. Sustainability a related concept focuses on meeting current needs without compromising future generations, "resilience" specifically targets the capability to handle disruptions like the recent big freeze, droughts and intense storms. 

Core Dimensions of Water Resilience

The key pillars of water Resilience:

• Robustness: The physical strength of the system to resist damage. This is the "hardened" infrastructure like pipes and pumps that resist soil shifts and weather related breaks and treatment plants that can operate during extreme weather conditions and floods.
• Redundancy: Having "spare capacity" or back-up systems. For example, if a primary river source is contaminated, a resilient system can instantly pivot to stored reservoir water or secondary interconnections with a neighboring utility. The Potomac River supplies most of the drinking water supply in this region. If there is a spill, Fairfax Water can turn to the Occoquan Reservoir, but a long duration need, like a severe drought might not be able to be met.
• Adaptability: The capacity of the organization to adjust operations as conditions change. This involves using real-time data to manage demand or modifying treatment processes to handle new contaminants.
• Rapidity: The speed at which a system returns to normal service after a failure, often supported by mutual aid agreements and emergency power sources.

 Typical Shocks and Stresses

A resilient system is designed to navigate both sudden "shocks" and long-term "stresses": 

• Sudden Shocks: Hurricanes, earthquakes, cyberattacks, chemical spills, intense cold snaps, and the sudden main breaks which are associated with sudden cold snaps. The resilience of our neighbors at WSSC and DC Water during the recent big freeze was lacking.
• Chronic Stresses: Prolonged droughts, aging infrastructure, rapid population or demand growth, and shifting climate patterns. 

The Role of Natural Infrastructure

Modern definitions of resilience increasingly include Ecological Resilience. This refers to the ability of watersheds, wetlands, and forests to naturally filter pollutants and slow down stormwater runoff, protecting the "built" infrastructure from being overwhelmed during extreme weather which is increasing. 

Prince William County maintains a modestly resilient water system through a combination of diverse water sourcing, regional interconnections, and significant infrastructure investments managed primarily by Prince William Water. However, about 10% of the population are not customer of PW Water.

1. Diversified Water Sources 

The county utilizes four distinct sources to ensure a steady supply: 

• Potomac River: Primary source for the western part of the county treated by Fairfax Water at their Corbalis Plant.
• Occoquan Reservoir: This is a sole source for the eastern part of the county. PW Water is completing a project to build a second connector to the Griffith Plant.
• Lake Manassas: Supplements the western part of the county with water treated by City of Manassas Water and could provide supply for a period of time if the connector to the Corbalis water treatment plant was disrupted.
• Groundwater Wells: Six public wells serve the Bull Run Mountain and Evergreen system. This is a single source community dependent on groundwater wells in a small geographic location. 

Source Water resilience

Let’s go back and look at what has been happening in Prince William County to impact the availability of water and water resilience.

In Prince William County  the conversion of open and forested lands into developed surfaces poses several direct threats to water resilience and sustainability, including increased pollutant runoff and degraded groundwater recharge.

Primary Threats from Land Use Change

• Increasing Impervious Surface prevents rainwater from soaking into the ground. And increasing stormwater runoff and flash flooding .
• Increased Pollutant Loading without natural filtering sediment, nitrogen, phosphorus, and heavy metals flow directly into rivers and the Occoquan.
• Reducing groundwater recharge and the availability of groundwater. 

Fairfax Water recommended that the Prince William Board of Supervisors strengthen riparian buffer protections by establishing an Environmental Resource Overlay District, requiring a 50-foot buffer of woodland for non-Resource Protection Area streams. For industrial development, they advised mandating 200-foot buffers, retaining existing forested areas instead of replanting, and utilizing permanent protective easements. Fairfax Water also called for prohibiting the discharge of high-salinity "blowdown" water into the system. 

In December 2022, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors approved the "Pathway to 2040" Comprehensive Plan, which resulted in the Removal of Sewer and Density Restrictions, allowing for more widespread development infrastructure and higher density.  New Land Use Designations effectively "upzones" sensitive areas.

Though they Occoquan Reservoir Protection Area (ORPA), but recent BOCS decisions have upzoned several areas of open land justifying the decision with the new existence of marvelously magical building techniques.

Industrial and Data Center Expansion including the Digital Gateway and a new industrial area along Route 28 near the Fauquier County line, further converting open land to intensive use. 

Emerging Water Supply Strains

New research from the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (ICPRB) highlights that changing weather patterns and increased water demand from data centers are straining the region’s water supply.

The 2025 Washington Metropolitan Area Water Supply Study - Demand and Resource Availability Forecast for the Year 2050 finds that while the region will generally have ample water, the risk of shortages is increasing—from about 1 percent in 2030 to 5 percent in 2050 even accounting for all  planned water storage increases in the period. Loss of groundwater is not factored into their model. ICPRB forecasts a 17% increase in water use by 2050, from 465 million gallons per day (MGD) to about 538 MGD.

Climate Change and Water Demand

Increasing water demand and predicted changes in temperature and precipitation—characterized as “hot drought”—may threaten river flow. Rising temperatures decrease river flows through higher evaporation, while increased precipitation could raise flows. The interplay between these factors, land use change reducing groundwater recharge combined with higher demand, puts the source water system at higher risk.

Water Supply Sources and Risks

While most regions have multiple water sources, the Potomac River is the sole drinking water source for Washington D.C. and Arlington County. Fairfax Water uses the Potomac River and the Occoquan Reservoir. Upstream reservoirs (Jennings Randolph and Little Seneca) can supplement Potomac River flow. However, the study found that, in extreme droughts, upstream reservoirs could run dry as early as 2030 in four out of nine scenarios, suggesting a need for additional storage.