Speeches and Floor Statements

Rep. Dave Brat testified before the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans, on his bill that would provide an exemption for the Town of Louisa in complying with the prohibitions of a National Park Service Grant, in order for the town to have access to clean water. The town’s witness was town manager, Tom Filer. Following the hearing, we are hopeful for there to be a committee markup of this legislation, that would expedite relief this town so desperately needs.

Here is a video of his testimony: https://youtu.be/L_tmsAA_dd8

Rep. Dave Brat's opening remarks before the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans -

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman; the Town of Louisa is a small rural town in my district two hours from Washington D.C. The residents of this town currently lack access to safe drinking water.

We are asking that the town be allowed to use a small piece of land no bigger than this room, in order to use a well that can provide the town with safe drinking water.

The town received a National Park Service grant to build a playground on town property in 2004.

In 2009, it was discovered that the town’s water had too much acid which violated an EPA regulation. It was placed under a “Consent Order” in 2015 to take corrective actions to bring the water back into compliance.

Access to safe drinking water is important to everyone, especially in small rural towns, like the Town of Louisa. Clean and safe water is a life source. The town is only a few hundred people, and it has spent millions of dollars to find safe drinking water sources. It’s even had to purchase water from the Louisa County Water Authority to redistribute to the town’s citizens.

The town and the Water Authority have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to perform engineering studies and undertake costly construction projects in an effort to come into compliance with the EPA rule.

Imagine not being able to drink the water out of your own faucet. And imagine being told as a Town Manager that you can’t take action to address this problem without first going through a long bureaucratic process; a process that has already taken over a year with no end in sight.

The town hasn’t even received a date as to when they might receive an answer from the Park Service, because it’s contingent on the town finding another tiny piece of land to “repay” to the Park Service.

There is very little the town can do to decrease the concentration level of acids from the current water source, and it has tried many different options to bring the water into compliance.

In 2010, the town received money from Virginia’s Department of Health to rehabilitate two wells and one spring once used by the town as sources of drinking water.

The intent was to use other water sources to dilute out the high concentrations of acids. However, the projects were abandoned and the money was de-obligated.

As you can see, repurposing the well on the town’s park was not the first attempt to find a suitable replacement to help the town’s water supply.

The park was initially selected as a potential well site because: according to the well driller, the site offered the potential for an excellent yield for this area of Louisa County; the well was on town property and would not require land acquisition; and because the well contained natural buffers which would provide excellent source water protection.

The town obtained a “Well Permit” from Virginia’s Department of Health to drill a test well on park property to see if there was a source of water to fulfill the town’s needs.

Upon the completion of the testing it was determined that the test well at the park was a suitable public water supply and could potentially fill a third of the town’s daily demand for water.

The town received a loan in 2014 to complete the construction of the well, and while I am glad the town has been able to move forward with completion of the well, they are still having to comply with agency requirements from the Park Service for repurposing a piece of the park that was built using a Land and Water Conservation Fund grant.

You see, Mr. Chairman, the town does not wish to pursue a land conversion for a few reasons, but most importantly because this is now a timing concern. The town has been trying to comply with not one, but two federal agencies in a process that’s been ongoing for years. The citizens need access to safe water now, not in a year.

The Town of Louisa also believes it could repurpose the boundary of the park where the well is; they believe the project would have no greater environmental impact than the construction of a public restroom.

The town has been working with the Park Service to try and come to an agreement on providing an exemption from the conversion, or to find a suitable portion of land that complies with the conversion requirements.

But this process has been long and the town’s project needs to move forward with all deliberate speed so that its residents can have safe clean drinking water as soon as possible. Time is of the essence.

With this in mind, we must quickly take all actions to bring the town’s drinking water back into compliance and restore the public’s confidence in one of our most valuable natural resources, clean water.

I now reserve the remainder of my time for questions.