Eastern Seaboard Water Situation....

This is a Total USA Map showing drought ridden regions.

The Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Ohio and lower Missouri valleys: In general, another week of warm, dry weather dominated this part of the country. Isolated storms brought relief to a relative few areas, and none were enough to improve on the situation. Many locations continue to build up their year-to-date deficits in what is turning out to be one of the driest years on record in many locales. As a result, only expansion of drought is reflected on this week’s map, with D1-D4 expanding to the west, north and east. The areas of most notable expansion include Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina, with more subtle deterioration noted in Tennessee and Virginia. In North Carolina, the governor has issued a statewide ban on burning and has asked citizens there to stop non-essential water use as several communities have only a few months of water supply remaining. This is also the case in some locales in northern Georgia, where the governor has also pleaded with citizens to voluntarily find other ways to conserve water besides the usual outdoor watering restrictions in place.

This is all data maps pertaining to the drought in Virginia.

From Florida to Virginia, Alabama to Georgia. The situation is getting desperate for the water needed to be provided for the cities to function, farmers to raise crops and people to be able to drink water. The experts are saying that we will have to get a hurricane to break the cycle. They are hoping that the weather patterns will change this month and that the blocking “high” of the coast will break up and loosed its hold on this side of the USA.

In the Richmond Metroplex we have only had 1.11'' of rain in the last 58 days.

Here are a list of restrictions that we in the Virginia area are under:

Water restrictions, both mandatory and voluntary, are a little different from one locality to the next. Penalties also vary. Check with your city or county to be sure. But generally, here are the restrictions:

Decorative or landscape fountains — Water use is prohibited.

Paved areas — Washing is prohibited except for immediate health and safety requirements.

Swimming pools — Limit to filling and replenishing to maintain health and safety. All other uses are prohibited.

Vehicle washing — Noncommercial washing is limited to one day per week using only hoses with automatic shut-off nozzles. Commercial vehicle-washing businesses are permitted to operate under normal conditions.

Established landscaping and gardens — Watering is limited to three days per week by address. Addresses ending with an odd number may water only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Addresses ending with an even number and locations with no street number may water only on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Watering is prohibited on Mondays.

Watering with buckets of up to five gallons per day is permitted any time.

Vegetable gardens — Limit watering to any two days per week between 8 p.m. and 10 a.m. Watering by bucket is unlimited.

New landscaping — All watering is permitted for the first 10 days after planting. Thereafter, the restriction for established landscaping and gardens shall apply.

Over seeding an existing lawn does not qualify as new landscaping.

Golf courses — Watering is restricted to Tuesday through Sunday between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. Greens are exempted from this restriction.Businesses — Limit to essential use only

Restaurants — No restrictions.

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Chesterfild Virginia...

Chesterfield VA is a very good county to live in. It has some of the best schools in the state and it has about 500k+ people living in it. There are 12 high schools and nearly 14 middle schools and as many elementary schools . Therefore, overall, it is a very good county to live in.

The bad part is the rapid expansion of the housing market here. With the national market in a slump, it is reflected here as well. In our subdivision, there have been houses on the market for over 9 months and they are still building more houses. In the whole Richmond Metroplex, there are over 10k houses on the market. Why are they still building? There are plans to build two new subdivisions in our area, Roseland and the other is called Branner Station and they will have a total of 10,000 new homes in them. Now my point is this; Chesterfield in the areas that subdivisions are being built does not have the infrastructure to handle them.

The water system depends on wells and Swift Creek Reservoir. With the little amount of rain, that we have had this year and the drought situation that we are in, it can hot handle more houses without expansion of those services. We are reportedly going on mandatory water restrictions as of next weekend due to the drought. This is happening all over Virginia and is not just a local event. The electrical system in our area is ok, we do have some power outages due to storms, but I think that Dominion Power has been trying to upgrade that infrastructure as of late.

The roads in this part of the county are for the most part two lane roads with no shoulders. The will improve the roads in front of the entrances of the subdivisions, but the rest of the roads are unimproved. Genito road coming from Hull Street (360) is a nice 4-lane road, when it crosses Old Hundred/Charter Colony Parkway; it becomes a bad two-lane road that goes through Brandermill and across Swift Creek Reservoir. There are several bad bridges that barely have enough room for two cars to pass at the same time. I hate to drive over them when another car is passing me. This road is on the 5-year plan to be expanded, I can t wait to see that happen.

Most of these properties that are being built had the land purchased in the early 1990s and the taxes were very low. The land developers have to pay taxes to have the city services to be connected to the sites. The land has set for over 15 years and the taxes are estimated to be around $18k, but they are locked in at the $2500k mark. So the developers will give the county land to make up for the difference in the tax base. The developers are ripping off the county and that is the main reason that the services are not up to where they need to be and it falls on the county to find the money to get them up to standered.

Another point I have to make is where are all the jobs coming from to support all of the new building? The main employers are Dominion and Philip Morris. With Wachovia taking leave of the city in 2009 and going to St. Louis and Capitol One having all the lay-offs, the tax base is not here to support all of the home development that is occurring here or to make all of the necessary infrastructure improvements that will be needed as well. With 10k new homes, that is an average of 30k new people going to live here. Where are they coming from? I know that the Fort Lee Military Base going to expand, but most Armed Services folks cannot afford a 300k+ home to live in and most of the new houses are in that price range.

I am not sure what the future holds for the Richmond Metroplex, but it should be interesting…




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Swift Creek Reservoir

This is the lowest levels that i have seen since moving here in December 2005. IF we do not get any rain soon, we will be placed on Water Restrictions.







We have lots of Canadian Geese that live here year round. The lake we live on is the water supply for Chesterfield County. It is called Swift Creek Reservoir. We have not had an substantial rain in the past several months.


This coves in the lake is getting shallow and the geese are taking advantage of it. Even though the weather gets hot here, the geese do not seam to mind the heat.







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