One Glass, Many Straws
May was about water. The first four months of 2025 were the driest start to a year in Loudoun County in 131 years of records. Last summer two of the Town's main wells came within ten feet of their pumps. On May 20 the Mayor and Town Manager held a community meeting to explain why the Town wants the power to ration water, and two days later Council held its hearing on the plan. It didn't vote: the hard question, how much water a household gets in a crisis, is still open.
Council met May 8, with Councilmember Darlene Kirk absent, and May 22 with all members present. Mayor Bridge Littleton votes only to break a tie.
One Glass, Many Straws
At the May 20 meeting Littleton walked the room through the numbers ▶ video:
- Rainfall: Loudoun needs about 40 inches a year to keep its aquifer stable. The running total for the past twelve months was about 30, and the county has been below normal for five years.
- Development: Western Loudoun had 11,500 private wells in 2010 and 5,500 more by 2020. "Every new well is a new straw in that cup of water draining from the same pool," he said.
- Last summer: a slide (shown above) traced the drought in the Town's own wells. Well P fell 150 feet. Well L and Well 4 each got to about ten feet above their pumps, "10 feet from being bone dry," and at times were losing a foot a day. Banning outdoor watering cut daily use from about 150,000 gallons to 110,000, and the wells steadied.
Town Manager Danny Davis then explained the proposed ordinance ▶ video:
- Level one: voluntary conservation.
- Level two: mandatory limits; hand watering only, and no topping off pools.
- Level three: rationing, only in a true emergency. It would set a household cap, with surcharges above it. A first draft that would have shut off repeat violators' water was dropped. "We realize that's a step too far," Davis said.
Each step would be discussed in public before it is used. The proposed cap is 150 gallons a day, borrowed from Round Hill. About 80 percent of households already use less, and the top five to ten users take more than half of the Town's water.
In the audience question period a resident said the Town's delivery pipes had been "ignored for at least I think 40 years." Davis answered that pressurized water lines push water out, not dirt in, and are chlorinated and tested. "I don't want anyone taking away from this meeting that our water system is being contaminated by sewage. It's not, we test it regularly." Two days later Littleton repeated it from the dais: "It is absolutely, utterly safe." He said the Town has replaced many of its old mains over 20 years and most are well within their useful life. Davis acknowledged one or two main breaks a year and said replacing even one street's mains, such as Chestnut Street, would cost half a million to a million dollars.
How Much Water Is Enough?
At the May 22 hearing ▶ video:
- Megan Gallagher called the problem urgent and supported the surcharges. "It would take some sort of crazy usage for me to ever get to 150," she said, "but I'm one person and a cat."
- Scott Little spoke for the resort and the Salamander residents. He supported conservation but asked for a sliding scale, because a house with seven people isn't a house with one, and offered to serve on a committee.
- John Kidder of Piedmont Drive asked the Town to look at supply, not just conservation.
- Kathyjo Shea, a former Councilmember, recalled raising the Town's source water when she served and being told "that was never going to be an issue." She thanked the current Council for taking it on.
Council couldn't settle the cap. Littleton uses 44 gallons a day living alone and figures a household of three lands near 150. Vice Mayor Chris Bernard and Councilmember Pam Curran worried about large families. Councilmember Bud Jacobs said 150 is easier to raise than to lower, and that in an extreme emergency, "this is not a consumer issue. This becomes a safety and a health issue." Littleton was against an across-the-board percentage cut, because it would barely change the habits of people who already use a lot: "we all have a moral responsibility for the greater community." He also suggested tying each level to measured well depths rather than calendar dates. Davis will come back with two options.
Councilmember Kevin Daly widened the frame: "If we are all sharing the same cup of water and we have a thousand straws going into it, we can control the straws here in town but what happens if we have new development on Foxcroft Road?" He asked whether the County could be brought into the conversation about development. Littleton proposed a yearly public review of the whole utility system, discussed by Council each quarter, and Council agreed. A new well alone, he said, costs about half a million dollars.
On the same night Council adopted the 3 percent water and sewer increase, 7-0, and held the budget hearing; no one spoke, and adoption waits until June. April's meals tax receipts came in strong, and January through April ran 3 percent ahead of last year. On May 8 Council approved $70,671.80 for Valley Drilling to inspect and clean Well 4, replace its pipe and pump, and drop the pump from 350 to 500 feet, 6-0 ▶ video.
Also This Month
- Officer McCord: Officer First Class Melvin McCord, with 26 years in law enforcement, took the Oath of Honor on May 22 ▶ video. He said much of what officers see is mental health, and that he and the other officers are trying to make time for people who need someone to talk to. Sue Foote moved from police administrative specialist to Planning & Project Associate. - Farmers market: the market's new layout opened with 24 vendors. Bernard reported far more vendors, and more variety, than last year; now it needs shoppers. - Events permit: Davis presented a first draft that defines small events (50 to 499 people) and large ones (500 or more), with a fuller review for large ones ▶ video. Littleton asked the harder question: whether Council could ever say no to an event that met every rule, if residents felt the town had simply had enough. The Town Attorney will weigh in. - Asbury Church: Caandor Ventures filmed its first three oral-history interviews on May 8. Town Clerk Rhonda North said Jim Roberts thanked her because the interview brought back memories he had forgotten. - Other business: - Segra proposed trading its $16,000 yearly fee for running fiber under Town streets for a dedicated fiber line to Town Hall. No other bidder came forward, and the decision comes in June. - The Historic District Review Committee, chaired by Tim Clites, wants to study entrance-corridor rules and a historical marker program. - The Town is looking into a gap between the water it pumps and the water it bills; one slow leak on Stonewall Court may have lost 50,000 gallons. - Well 3 was resampled for PFAS. - Punkin Lee reported that the Beautification Committee's Foxes on the Fence raised almost $23,000. - Middleburg Day is May 30, and Juneteenth is June 21 at the Community Center.
Public Comment
May 8: no public comment period was held.
May 20, water conservation community meeting: several residents asked about well supply, aging water mains, meter readings and leak notices, and how a cap would treat large households. The recording does not reliably identify the speakers.
May 22 ▶ video
- Kathyjo Shea, Foxcroft Road, a former Councilmember, thanked the Town for the water meeting and for finally looking at source water.
- Punkin Lee, The Plains Road, thanked the police for Art in the Burg and reported that Foxes on the Fence raised almost $23,000.
- Jilann Brunett, Foxcroft Road, praised the May 20 presentation.
Public hearing, water conservation ordinance: Megan Gallagher, East Marshall Street, in favor; Scott Little, for the Salamander Resort and residents, in favor with a sliding scale; John Kidder, Piedmont Drive, asked for attention to supply.
Public hearings, budget, utility rates and Segra franchise: no one spoke.
Tips & Wags (opinion)
Tip of the Hat to the Mayor and Town Manager for holding a meeting to explain a hard rule before passing it, and taking every question.
Tip of the Hat to Kevin Daly. One glass, a thousand straws, and only a few of them in town limits: that's the conversation the County needs to join.
Wag of the Finger to the rumor that sewage is in the water lines. Ask the people who test it every week, then pass the answer along.
Coming Up
- May 30: Middleburg Day, 5 to 9 p.m., Town Hall.
- June 12: Council: budget adoption, the Segra franchise, and the rationing cap options.
- June 21: Juneteenth celebration, Community Center.
- Summer: Well 4 rehabilitation; utility rate structure study.
- September 20: Oktoberfest.
Sources: the meeting videos (May 8, May 20 community meeting, May 22), the Town's minutes (pending approval) and the transcripts attached to them, and the Eccentric's transcription of the May 20 audio. Quotes come from those transcripts; each ▶ link opens the video at the start of that agenda item.