Communication issues between the City of Richmond and Henrico County delayed the county’s ability to manage its response to January’s region wide water outage, independent reviewers concluded in a set of after-action reports released Tuesday.
AquaLaw, a Richmond-based utilities firm, examined the timeline of events at the city’s water treatment facility and the county’s response throughout the crisis — including initial observations from the Virginia Department of Health.
AquaLaw President Christopher Pomeroy told the county’s board of supervisors Tuesday that the report aligns with VDH's findings.
“Communication was a challenge — that's a kind of an unavoidable conclusion — and the facts really speak for themselves,” Pomeroy told the board Tuesday. “Henrico would have lost water despite the information on this page, but the process obviously could have been much better.”
Richmond staff first notified county officials that its main water treatment facility was down around 7 a.m. on Jan. 6, but Henrico’s public utilities department was not made aware of the outage’s full severity until 2:34 p.m., more than seven hours later.
“I'm sure we can all appreciate that Richmond was managing a very difficult problem in terms of restoring operation of that facility,” Pomeroy said. “But the effect on our end was that the reports proved simply to be optimistic, and they repeatedly raised false hopes that we'd have water back in time to avoid an outage in Henrico.”
The report reveals that in multiple instances April Bingham, Richmond’s former public utilities director, was attempting to send text messages to Bentley Chan, her Henrico counterpart — but sending them to his desk phone rather than his cellphone.
"Only after the Henrico DPU Director initiated contact with the Richmond DPU Director was the extreme nature of the problem disclosed to Henrico DPU Director,” the report states. “Even after this initial contact, basic communications problems persisted."
Communication strengthened once Henrico county staff were able to observe the Richmond treatment plant, Pomeroy said.
Disproportionate impacts in eastern Henrico
Henrico did well on its own diverting resources from its water treatment facilities, Pomeroy said, but water in the eastern part of the county — which is primarily served by Richmond’s water supply — quickly ran dry.
At its peak, Henrico’s water outage impacted about 24,000 residences and businesses, roughly one-fourth of the county’s water customers.
Varina Supervisor Tyrone Nelson commended Chan for his communication and coordination once the severity of Richmond’s issues were known, but expressed frustration that the county was “left in the dark” about the severity of missteps during a widespread emergency.
“We just can't do this again,” Nelson said. “I told somebody earlier today I have a certain level of anxiety every time it snows that this will happen again.”
What comes next?
To supplement the AquaLaw report, Henrico hired engineering consultants Whitman, Requardt & Associates LLP to determine short-, medium- and long-term options for reducing eastern Henrico’s dependence on Richmond’s water.
Several possible solutions involve key infrastructure improvements to the county’s existing water distribution system, which carries around 80 million gallons per day.
But any plans will have to account for the fact that Henrico is contractually obligated to purchase at least 12 million gallons per day (MGD) from Richmond through 2040, due to a 1994 city-county agreement.
A lot has changed since Henrico first signed that agreement. The county is able to draw more of its own water from the James River after taking over operation of Cobbs Creek Reservoir in Cumberland County. It’s even exploring the possibility of supplying water to neighboring New Kent and Powhatan counties.
“Water is the resource that everybody wants right now,” County Manager John Vithoulkas said. “It could be that this crisis has given us clarity, as far as you know, how valuable that resource is. It's very important.”
Vithoulkas said he’ll speak with Richmond Mayor Danny Avula about the county’s next steps — either working to reduce its reliance on Richmond water or strengthening its collaboration with regional partners.
Dan Schmitt, Brookland supervisor and board chair, said no matter which path the county chooses, his priority is to make sure January's water outage never happens again.
With Richmond and Hanover County both expected to release their after-action reports later this week, Schmitt said Henrico will have the information it needs to decide how best to supply water to its residents.
“Good data equals good decisions all the time,” Schmitt said. “At the end of this, when we're all done, I'd like to remember that piece.”
