Smithfield approved its final payment on July 1 to complete the process of exiting a 2018 agreement that otherwise would have obligated the town to begin purchasing water from Isle of Wight County last year.

Per the terms of a new agreement the town and county enacted last year, Smithfield was to make two half-million-dollar payments to Isle of Wight, one on July 1, 2024, and the other on the same date this year. The $1 million in total is intended to equal the payments the town would have made to the county through 2028 under the 2018 deal.

Smithfield’s Town Council voted unanimously on July 1 to authorize the second $500,000 payment, which was listed among seven invoices over $20,000 requiring council approval.

Smithfield supplies roughly 114,500 gallons annually to county water customers in the Gatling Pointe neighborhood, located just outside the town limits on Battery Park Road. Seven years ago, Smithfield agreed to switch an equivalent number of town customers in the Benns Church Boulevard area to county water by mid-2023.

Per the terms of the 2024 agreement, the town will continue to provide water and sewer service to Gatling Pointe and will begin providing water to Hardy Elementary School and surrounding Thomas Park, Tormentors Creek and Days Point neighborhoods using the newly built water main extending from the town limits to the new school. The agreement caps the amount of water allotted to Hardy and the surrounding area at 50,000 gallons per day.

Another provision of the 2024 agreement gives the county the right to sell water directly to residents and businesses that move into a proposed mixed-use development dubbed “The Promontory,” which would add 239 homes and five commercial parcels along the Benns Church Boulevard corridor, even though the development is located just inside the town limits. That development is currently under review by the town’s Planning Commission.

If the council approves The Promontory, the resulting influx of new county water users will lessen Isle of Wight’s annual cost of participating in the Western Tidewater Water Authority’s 2009 Norfolk Water Deal, intended to wean the area off its dependence on groundwater. The WTWA is composed of Isle of Wight County and Suffolk.

The Norfolk deal allocates Isle of Wight 2 million gallons per day of surface water from Norfolk. Isle of Wight is obligated to pay for the full amount, though it only used roughly one-third of its share last year.