JCC Supes to Discuss Future of Jolly Pond Road

By Desiree Parker Friday, October 21, 2011

The James City County Board of Supervisors is set to discuss whether to give the green light to start the process that would ultimately reopen Jolly Pond Road at Jolly Pond Dam.

In early 2009, the Virginia Department of Transportation barricaded part of Jolly Pond Road after a privately owned dam didn’t get a needed permit. Since then, getting from one side of the dam to the other requires a miles-long detour and has proven to be a challenge to residents, school bus drivers and others.

The county asked its state legislators to propose a bill that would authorize limited use of secondary roads should VDOT discontinue them, and the legislation was passed this summer. This would allow a secondary road such as the closed portion of Jolly Pond Dam to be under county control if it were to be removed from VDOT’s purview. Supervisors will start discussion on the process Tuesday evening.

The dam has been evaluated most recently by a representative of the Timmons Group and a county staff member, and they found that the dam doesn’t appear to have changed over the years and no additional risk of failure is evident. To address safety concerns, the county will need to have a monitoring program in place and implement an Emergency Action Plan (EAP) if the road is to reopen.

Staff recommends reopening the road and implementing a continued monitoring program and EAP developed by the Timmons Group.

The Board needs to decide if it is ready to move forward and ask VDOT to remove the dam section of the road from its system. The state’s Commonwealth Transportation Board will then need to have a public hearing process that will last roughly 30 days, according to Development Manager Steven Hicks. This process could possibly begin as early as January, Hicks said.

Should the road be reopened, that doesn’t mean the county will be responsible for taking care of or repairing the dam.

The Board will meet Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Building F of the county government complex on Mounts Bay Road. See a link to the agenda here.