Richmond’s Department of Public Utilities is under state scrutiny following a delayed response to last month's unplanned dump of nearly 6,000 gallons of fluoride into the public water supply.
The Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water is now raising concerns about the local agency’s lack of transparency and poor communication with residents and neighboring counties around the incident.
ODW Field Director James Reynolds sent a letter to Mayor Danny Avula and DPU Director Scott Morris on Monday, saying health officials are concerned that issues like operations and communication at the Douglasdale Road facility — which should have been resolved in the aftermath of January’s water crisis — appear to persist.
Reynolds issued the city a “notice of alleged violation” with four detailed violations for the fluoride overfeed incident, which caused a discharge of approximately 5,900 gallons of fluoride solution into the drinking water. The notice states that the city “may be or may have” violated the Public Water Supplies Law when it failed to provide and maintain conditions at the water treatment plant to ensure a “high degree of capability and reliability.”
DPU spokesperson Rhonda Johnson told VPM News that the state has acknowledged DPU is addressing its compliance concerns, and that the city is not seeking to challenge that notice.
Communication override
The City of Richmond did not notify VDH or neighboring countries that depend on the city’s treated drinking water of the unplanned fluoride discharge on April 23. Prior to this, the city’s fluoride feeds had been offline since January as a result of the water crisis.
Instead, Hanover and Henrico county officials said they were each first notified by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management on the evening of April 27 — even though the incident was later confirmed to have happened several days prior. (In a separate notice, Chesterfield County said it was alerted by local emergency staff)
The next day, Avula said in a press release that he was “disappointed with our failure to communicate.”
“This incident damages the work we're doing to rebuild trust — not only with the residents of Richmond, but our communities, and our regional partners, including Henrico, Chesterfield, and Hanover,” he said. “We must do better.”
VDH said on Monday that the April 23 overfeed incident and Richmond’s notification delay showed a “lack of institutional oversight of operations and maintenance projects at the city’s water treatment plant.”
The city’s issued news release attributed the increased fluoride levels to the installation of a new fluoride pump, since the feed had been offline for months.
“Fluoride levels detected at the Water Treatment Plant were 2.67 milligrams per liter (mg/L) which is below the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 4.0 mg/L, the highest level that is allowed in drinking water by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),” the city’s release said. “The optimal target level of fluoride is 0.7 mg/L.”
Despite the temporary increase, the city said at the time Richmond’s tap water was safe to consume.
VDH’s Office of Drinking Water did support this statement in an April 29 email to VPM News, saying at the time that “the fluoride concentration was too low and too short in duration” to cause immediate acute health risks.
However, the notice sent by VDH and Richmond ODW field director Reynolds on Monday alleged there is no way of knowing whether Richmond’s fluoride concentration levels exceeded 2.67 mg/L during this overfeed. That’s because it would have required waterworks staff to perform additional dilution and sampling work — which the state said city staff did not know how to do.
“[Water Treatment Plant] staff did not know how to dilute a sample to evaluate fluoride residuals that are above the sensitivity range of the equipment,” the notice stated, pointing out that instructions were “posted locally” near the instrument used for dilution.
Because the treatment plant’s fluoride pump was offline and had been since January, VDH said city staff should have conducted a thorough investigation when testing equipment showed fluoride residuals on April 23 during the installation process. As of this week, the pump was still offline.
Chesterfield’s sample result on April 25 shows a spike reading of 3.86 mg/L, compared to days prior to the incident when the reading was 0.2 mg/L. VDH said Chesterfield collects samples of fluoride levels from its waterwork connection points every day.
Fluoride has been added to the nation’s public drinking water supply since 1962, when the US Department of Health and Human Services recommended community water systems adopt the practice to prevent tooth decay.
Implementing solutions
In addition to the VDH’s outline of alleged violations, the state pointed out that better communication between city maintenance and plant operations staff could have prevented the fluoride overfeed incident. One example illustrates that caution tags had not been placed on plant equipment.
Reynolds said the lack of communication and tags could have prevented leaving valves open, which resulted in water filling a fluoride storage tank, then flowing through the disengaged pump that was being installed.
“Complacency and accepting abnormal operational situations cannot continue,” Reynolds’ notice stated. “Maintenance and operation staff must have better, active conversations and not just rely on equipment tags for communication.”
Johnson told VPM News this week that Richmond DPU is in the process of updating all of their standard operating procedures. Staff will be trained on communication procedures next, which will then be included in the department’s operational processes by June 1.
“Mayor Avula remains steadfast in his commitment to high standards and accountability,” Johnson said in an email to VPM News. “He appreciates the quick steps taken by DPU to address the immediate compliance concerns and to implement additional safeguards in our operations.”
Richmond DPU has outlined eight corrective actions it is taking in light of the April fluoride overflow, including collecting daily samples of residuals. Discontinuing those samples would require the approval of the DPU director.
Reynolds also recommended that the city reissue a press release to inform Richmonders that fluoride samples were not collected during the April overfeed incident, so levels during that period of time are unknown.
In response to VPM News’ questions this week about the VDH violation notice, the city maintained that Richmond’s fluoride levels did not surpass the maximum contaminant levels. Johnson said the city remains committed to keeping residents informed and plans to notify them once the city’s fluoride system is back online.
