Goochland staff begin 2025 utility master plan update; county hears scope, growth and resiliency issues

Wayne Stevens, acting director of public utilities and county engineer, briefed the Goochland County Planning Commission on April 17, 2025 about the county's 2025 utility master plan (UMP) update, outlining the plan’s role in sizing infrastructure, prioritizing capital projects and ensuring system resilience.

“A utility master plan is a roadmap for planning upgrades, improvements, and expansions to the county's water and sewer utility systems to meet the current and future needs,” Stevens told the commission. He said the master plan update uses the county’s adopted comprehensive plan as the lead document and that consultants will model existing systems, project future demands, and develop conceptual cost estimates for prioritized projects.

Stevens summarized recent growth and system changes since the county’s first UMP (2015) and the 2020 update: roughly 1,300 customers countywide in 2015, about 1,780 customers at the 2020 update, and approximately 2,900 customers as of 2025. He said the East End of the county has seen much of the recent expansion: the East End customer base grew from about 1,000 in 2015 to nearly 2,600 today, and the county has added linear miles of water line (he cited about 10 miles in the courthouse area in 2015 and around 49 miles countywide then, with approximately 27 miles added over the past decade).

Stevens described a major unexpected emergency project in 2022: a series of major repairs to a 48‑inch force main that carries sewage from an Eastern Goochland pump station to Henrico County; that work, he said, disrupted capital improvement funding and required reprioritization of projects.

Among items the UMP will address, Stevens said: - Computer modeling and calibration of water and sewer systems using real meter readings and updated system maps; consultants will propose system upgrades and conceptual cost estimates. - Incorporation of recent studies: a system resiliency evaluation and a system storage evaluation (both completed last year) to inform recommended resilience and storage projects. - A planned storage tank and booster-station facility at the Ridgefield connection to Henrico County to better serve West Creek and River Road pressure zones; Henrico is the county’s water supplier and Goochland has multiple interconnections that require hydraulic planning. - A preliminary study of options for providing public water and sewer service to Oilville, requested by the county’s economic development director; Stevens said potential approaches include transfer arrangements but noted technical issues such as water “age” and the need for re-treatment at the receiving end.

On system resiliency and a recent regional boil-water notice, Stevens said that closing connections to Henrico could help isolate Goochland if the county had enough notice and sufficient local storage, but most systems carry only one to two days of storage. “If Enrico is having a problem… and they're going to go on a boil water notice that's going to last more than about 2 days, it really wouldn't do us a tremendous amount of good because at some point we'd have to open up one of the connections and let water come in,” he said. He described hydraulics and pressure-zone constraints that limit how water can be routed without pumps and said some valve operations can re-route flows if staff get timely notice from Henrico.

Stevens said the 2025 UMP update will include a new section to evaluate options for Oilville, potential revisions to East End pressure zones to address irrigation-period low‑pressure/high‑flow issues, and incorporation of recommendations from recent resiliency and storage studies. He told commissioners the county is early in the update and promised to return with progress reports.

No formal actions or votes were recorded on the utility master plan; the presentation was an informational staff update and the commission used the period to ask clarifying questions about study timing, resiliency, and where to access the 2020 plan online.

Ending Stevens offered to return with an update as the UMP progresses; staff left copies of the prior (2020) plan for commissioners and said the 2025 update is underway.