Source Water Protection

Hampton Roads Regional Source Water Protection Plan 

Lake Whitehurst, one of Norfolk's sources of drinking water

Hampton Roads municipal water utilities are committed to protecting the region’s drinking water sources. The Hampton Roads Regional Source Water Protection Plan summarizes risks to municipal source water quality, existing regional source water protection measures, and potential protection and management strategies for future implementation. The regional source water protection plan aims to focus protection efforts to minimize risk of contamination and to ensure that high quality drinking water is delivered to the public.

Source Water Assessment Inventory

Originally, the inventory was developed by the Virginia Department of Health in 2003 as a requirement of the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. This initial inventory included maps illustrating potential sources of contamination (PSC) to drinking water sources (or source water) across the region, including: petroleum storage tanks, superfund sites, industrial sites, and more. Since this initial inventory, HRPDC staff worked to update, expand and prioritize the inventory based on risk to source water in order to better manage these source water systems.

The maps of potential sources of contamination were distributed to all utilities in Hampton Roads. To preview the inventory, click this link. This inventory continues to be update and refined.

By identifying PSC’s that could have a spill, utilities are able to reach out to the owners of PSC’s to encourage safe storage or maintenance practices. Additionally, this assessment improves rapid communication if there was a spill and awareness of which drinking water sources might be impacted.

Please contact the Water Resources department for more information about available data.