Cape Charles to consider selling water utilities

The Town of Cape Charles is considering selling its water utilities and will conduct a public hearing on the matter at tonight’s Town Council Meeting.

In a special edition of the Cape Charles Gazette, Town Manager John Hozey wrote the town recieved two unsolicited offers to buy the town water and wastewater utilities.

One from Aqua, a company which had been in talks with the town of Exmore to acquire their wastewater utilities, and the second was from Virginia American Water. According to its proposal, VAW has provided drinking water to locality in Virginia since as early as 1850, and currently supplies seven counties and two cities in the Commonwealth.

Both proposals promise major investment in the utility and job creation for the town of Cape Charles.

“The next step in this process is now for the Town Council to select one of these companies to move on to the next phase of the evaluation which will include robust public discussions,” Hozey continued in the Gazette. “The Council is scheduled to make this choice at an open special meeting on January 13, 2022.”

These unsolicited offers come at an interesting time for wastewater utilities on the Eastern Shore, as the Hampton Roads Sanitation District takes over the operation of Onancock’s plant and plans to construct lines along the railroad tracks from Accomac to Nassawadox. At Tuesday night’s Northampton Board of Supervisors meeting, Cape Charles’ Supervisor John Coker said he had hoped Cape Charles would be eventually absorbed into the HRSD’s Eastern Shore operation.

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