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

Over the past year, Hampton Roads Planning District Commission Staff has worked to update and prioritize the inventory of 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.

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 PSC locations and land use activities of concern. 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 updated source water assessment is summarized for both surface water and groundwater sources using interactive maps. You can access the maps here.

This assessment aims to focus protection efforts to minimize risk of contamination and to ensure that high quality drinking water is delivered to the public. 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.

 Additional efforts to protect source water in the region is outlined in the Hampton Roads Regional Source Water Protection Plan.