RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia's top drinking water official said the growing number of water woes in Richmond is "unprecedented," in contrast to comments from the city's Department of Public Utilities (DPU) leader who said last week it is not uncommon for waterworks to experience repeated problems like the city has.
“I will emphasize that this is unacceptable," said Dwayne Roadcap, the director of the Virginia Department of Health's (VDH) Office of Drinking Water. “There's a lot of frustration and anger, rightfully so, about this incident. We share that from the Virginia Department of Health.”
As the state regulatory agency, VDH has been heavily involved with the city's DPU in the aftermath of January's water crisis, which left the region without drinkable water for nearly a week. Since then, issues at the water treatment plant have also caused a fluoride exceedance and, most recently, a two-day boil water advisory that impacted much of the city.
Richmond officials attributed the boil water advisory to high turbidity in the source water and maintenance delays at the plant that caused plate settlers, which are responsible for filtering out sediment, to get clogged. As CBS 6 reported last week, a delayed work order showed requested cleaning of the plate settlers was put off for reasons unknown.
Roadcap said DPU knew almost immediately that the clogged plate settlers were the source of the issue and began cleaning the filters as soon as the problem was noticed.
He added that there could be even more contributing factors. VDH is still investigating whether DPU added the right amount of chemicals into the water meant to help break down sediments before the filtration process, known as coagulation and flocculation.
"We're looking at those chemical feeds and some other aspects of the data with the city," Roadcap said. "I can't tell you with certainty right now today whether that's the case, but we are looking at data and looking into a few things with the city to see if there's some other things that need to be addressed in addition to what the city has reported."
CBS 6 reached out to Richmond DPU to ask if it believed any issues with the chemical feeds played a role in the incident, and we have not yet heard back.
Roadcap said learning about what caused last week's water advisory felt like "more of the same." In April, the health department released the findings of its third-party investigation into the January water crisis, which identified inadequate and reactive maintenance practices within DPU.
And in May, VDH cited Richmond with alleged regulatory violations due to a fluoride overflow impacting the water distribution system and failures to properly communicate. At the time, the agency said it "remained concerned that lessons the [city] should have learned since the January water crisis have not been adequately addressed."
“The frustrating and difficult part about this is it looks like it's more of the same of what we observed from the water crisis, that there's some complacency involved with how the city's staff are handling things. One of our findings was that the city needed to be more proactive. They needed to do a better job with their maintenance, and from what I'm seeing from the city, they're not where they need to be yet," Roadcap said.
“So, what more could VDH do on yall's side as far as enforcement?" reporter Tyler Layne asked Roadcap. "I know that you’ve put them under a corrective action plan because of the January water crisis, but we’ve continued to see these significant and escalating issues at the plant.”
“Part of our job is to ensure accountability with the city, and all options are sort of being looked at and are on the table. With that being said, our staff are technical experts. They're operators. We've operated water systems. We've got engineers on our team, but we're not supervising, managing and running the water treatment plant. That's not our role," he responded.
Moving forward, the state could amend the city's current corrective action plan to include further requirements for improvement. Roadcap said VDH is also considering fining DPU, but he's hesitant to impose a penalty that ultimately the customers would end up paying, and he'd like for those funds to stay with the city to make improvements at the plant.
Additionally, VDH may issue its fourth notice of alleged violation to the city within a five-month timeframe.
When asked during a press conference last week whether it's normal for a locality like Richmond to experience repeated water problems, DPU Director Scott Morris said, “Back-to-back issues normally is not atypical. Boil water notices do occur. This is something that occurs routinely nationwide.”
However, Roadcap insisted it is not normal.
“This is unprecedented for a large water system of this size, that the regulatory agency feels compelled and needs to send notices of alleged violation, especially that many in a short period of time," Roadcap said.
That said, Roadcap believes Richmond DPU has been making progress on some fronts, and he commended the new leadership for being transparent and communicative with VDH.
Mayor Danny Avula said last week that it could take years to fix the culture within DPU.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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