HENRICO COUNTY, Va. β Richmond's 2025 water crisis exposed serious dysfunction and communication breakdowns between the city and its regional partners. County utilities directors weren't informed about the severity of the disaster for hours, leaving communities vulnerable and without critical information.
For Henrico County, which relies on Richmond for about a third of its water supply, the aftermath brought sharp focus on how to handle future issues with their regional partner.
"Self sufficiency is important, but it's important in the sense of redundancy, that there is another valve that you can open, another tap that you can open to bring water to parts of the county that are normally served by the city," said Bentley Chan, Henrico's Director of Public Utilities.
Chan says Henrico has moved forward significantly since last year's water crisis left eastern parts of the county vulnerable and without water. One key element is building a $300 million water line announced last fall that will bring water from their Three Chopt water plant in the west all the way to the Varina and Fairfield districts in the east.
The infrastructure investment gives Henrico an extra layer of protection in the event of another failure in Richmond's system.
"It's not just one thing being offline that causes an issue. And so we want to look at it regionally. We want to look at okay, well, how can we help Richmond? How can Richmond help us? How can we help Hanover and all of the surrounding localities in the region?" Chan said.
But Chan adds another major development in Henrico's resiliency is how his team can now communicate effectively with their counterparts in Richmond.
"What we're finding is a lot of close communication, a lot close coordination at every level and so between our operators at both plants, our field staff, all the way up to me, and the manager's office, coordinating with our counterparts," Chan said.
Last spring, after-action reports found Richmond's former Department of Public Utilities director delayed reaching out to regional partners about the severity of the crisis, losing precious minutes and hours as system failures cascaded. Hundreds of thousands would be without water for days. The reports pointed out that at the height of the water outage, April Bingham actually sent texts that went nowhere because they were sent to Chan's landline.
At a news conference Monday outlining improvements Richmond has made to its physical water infrastructure, Scott Morris, who was brought in to run the department after the crisis, pointed to a cultural change ensuring true regional cooperation.
"I reach out to my counterparts routinely. We're in active discussions on a daily basis, weekly basis, when any type of event occurs where they need assistance, or I need assistance, there's that level of comfort in discussing things with them. So I think that's been fully addressed, in my personal opinion, more readily available for each other, active communications, phone calls, regardless of the time of night," Morris said.
While Henrico continues building up its own infrastructure, Chan says he has much more faith in how his neighbor, which supplies a critical resource, is operating.
"This is an evolution of a relationship, and it just gets better day after day with each email, each text, each phone call, just making sure that, 'Hey, if something's going on, we want you to know, and we're going to be the ones to tell you," Chan said.
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