Henrico County's Board of Supervisors held a joint meeting Wednesday with its counterparts from Hanover County to discuss the future of the counties’ water utilities, after repeated issues at Richmond’s main water treatment plant affected delivery in both counties — which are under agreements to buy water from the city.
The meeting between the two boards was the first of its kind, according to Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas, who's been a county employee for nearly three decades — highlighting the urgency to reduce dependence on Richmond’s water supply.
Vithoulkas referred to the fact that both counties have decadeslong histories with Richmond’s water supply, which could help inform possible solutions to prevent future water distribution issues in the region.
Before 1994, Hanover County residents got their water through a patchwork system that involved 25 interconnected urban wells, a modest water treatment plant in Doswell and a small supply from Henrico.
But as demand continued to rise into the mid-90s, Hanover entered into a formal agreement with the City of Richmond to buy 20 million gallons per day from the city. That allowed the county to meet its growing need, but left it susceptible to potential issues at facilities it does not operate.
“It’s obvious to everybody, mostly our constituents, that Hanover County was quite vulnerable in this particular situation,” said Sue Dibble, of Hanover’s South Anna District. “We were extremely vulnerable with very little control [over] how to fix it, minimize it, and so forth. And that's something that we need to change.”
Henrico also has longstanding connections to Richmond's water network. The county also entered into a water-buying agreement with the city in 1994, though it continued to tap into its own system of high-capacity wells.
In 2004, Henrico opened its own water treatment facility — a plant that could produce 80 million gallons per day, dramatically reducing the county’s dependence on Richmond. But the eastern part of Henrico, which has limited infrastructure, still relies heavily on city water.
Tyrone Nelson, of Henrico’s Varina District, said improving the county’s water distribution to the eastern part of the county is a crucial step: “When I’m thinking about water distribution, I’m thinking about the people that are impacted every time this happens.”
Both counties maintain contracts with the city to this day. Hanover’s 1994 agreement runs through 2035, while Henrico’s deal stretches until 2040. However, both contracts can be terminated with advance notice: five years for Henrico, 10 for Hanover.
The approaching end dates are prompting both counties to consider pivoting to new water distribution options that would be more reliant and flexible during emergency situations.
“Regardless of whether it is a regional collaborative or where we end up, the ability to move the supply of an abundance of water should be part of our goal,” said Dan Schmitt, Henrico’s Brookland District supervisor and chair of the county’s board. “Otherwise, we can't do anything else, and we will always be reliant upon our system working, or the city system working.”
The counties are investing in long-term planning and facilities upgrades, both separately and together. Henrico — which took over operations at Cobbs Creek Reservoir (now named for Vithoulkas' predecessor, Virgil R. Hazelett) last year — is evaluating plans for treatment facility expansion and future capital projects that will allow it to meet water demand as the population continues to grow; Hanover is conducting a water supply resilience study that includes plans for a new treatment plant on the Pamunkey River and potential infrastructure links with Henrico.
Henrico vice chair Roscoe Cooper, of the Fairfield District, said a regional oversight commission or water authority could be a possibility, but that regardless of implementation, the main goals are to improve communication among the localities and ensure that everyone is able to get the water they need.
“It's not our desire to take over, but it's our desire to have a better relationship and make us more comfortable for our community,” Cooper said.
‘Cascading impacts across multiple jurisdictions’
The joint meeting ended around the same time Richmond officials released a review of the city’s emergency response to January’s winter storm and water crisis — a report that detailed similar communication issues that frustrated the counties and other major revelations.
The 84-page report calls for the creation of “a regional utility coordination framework” to improve how the city and counties share information and distribute resources.
“This incident underscored the interdependence between regional utility partners, demonstrating how disruptions in one system can trigger cascading impacts across multiple jurisdictions,” the report reads.
The assessment, done by emergency management consulting firm Hagerty Consulting, looked into several areas of the city’s incident response capabilities — including a review of the planning and operational coordination and communication at Richmond’s Emergency Operations Center — before coming to that recommendation.
Among other key findings, the report says Richmond doesn’t have formal or updated “critical emergency management plans,” including ones for a mass casualty event, an active threat or shooter or “Crisis Communications.”
The report adds that this also includes a “Family Reunification Center (FRC) plan,” “Family Assistance Center (FAC) plan,” “POD plan,” and plans for “Resource Management.”
Some of the plans are currently being drafted or developed by the city, according to the report.
According to the report, Richmond also doesn’t have a financial plan in place for emergency procurement and cost recovery and had to “develop processes in real-time” during response efforts.
The report said the “absence of a clear chain of command” in the operations center led to confusion in decision-making. It also found planning gaps that led to “disorganization,” outdated contact lists and other communication issues.
“Stakeholders at every level were impacted by a lack of transparent, timely, and accurate communication, which led to confusion about the situation at hand,” the report states. “Failure to communicate was highlighted at the onset of the WTP event and throughout the response after that.”
Richmond Mayor Danny Avula said in February that he believed city officials communicated properly with neighboring counties throughout the January outage.
The report also noted the city had challenges informing residents and sharing consistent information, leading to “discrepancies in messaging.” This included unclear ways to use the “Richmond Ready” alert system to notify the public.
In one example, the report says that health care partners such as VCU Health were not part of the city’s emergency operations distribution lists, while the way that water disruptions would impact health care facilities, shelters and other facilities housing large groups was “not directly managed or discussed by the EOC."
"Unaddressed water pressure issues could lead to severe repercussions for local hospitals and other facilities regarding sanitation and disease,” the report warns.
VCU Health said it heard about the boil water advisory an hour before Richmond lost water pressure because it had a good relationship with Richmond’s Department of Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response’s Office of Emergency Management, per the report.
This allowed VCU Health to get its leadership together “just in time.”
The city used “an ad hoc spreadsheet” to track 311 calls — instead of its established policy — during the winter storm and water crisis. The report said the city didn’t initially know the incident’s complexity and impact, and didn’t believe the call center would need to stay open as long as it did.
“Within five days, over 1,000 calls were received and stakeholders feared that some information became inaccurate, noting it took a longer time to input things manually into the spreadsheet,” the report reads. “Also, because the program was not used, 311 staff had to manually delineate which addresses were within City limits.”
The report did highlight strengths of the city’s response, including how staff adapted to the conditions, “strong internal teamwork” and “transparent leadership.”
But staff also reported they were “overworked and undervalued,” which led to fatigue and diminished decision-making abilities, per the report. They also said they lacked clarity on how long their shifts were, so many stayed at the EOC for more than 12 hours at a time, “which led to exhaustion,” per the report.
Hagerty reviewed documents, conducted 57 interviews and received 13 survey responses for the assessment.
Stephen Willoughby, the city’s director for emergency communications, called the assessment “a vital step in understanding” Richmond’s response to the storm and water crisis.
