RICHMOND, Va. — As the City of Richmond moves ahead with addressing and investigating a historic water crisis, one Richmond property owner is calling attention to a previous water issue that disrupted service to many of his residents. The common denominator between the two, he said, is that they were both triggered by power outages.
Charles Small received a bunch of emails, text messages, and phone calls the morning of Nov. 15, 2024.
One email read, “There is always little water pressure, but why has the water been cut off today?”
That question came from a resident at one of the condominium buildings he owns.
Small showed CBS 6 another email that he sent to a client at 9:19 that morning.
"We are getting reports from all over about low water to no water," Small wrote.
Those reports were of water outages at properties across Richmond's Museum and Fan Districts.
So, Small said he called the Department of Public Utilities to find out what was going on.
“Eventually, when I got somebody on the phone, the individual said that there was a pump down due to a Dominion Energy power outage, and it happened, I can't remember if it was a day before or just way earlier in the middle of the night or so, but she said way earlier," Small recalled.
Dominion Energy confirmed an outage on the circuit that feeds the Byrd Park Pump Station occurred that day due to a failed cable. The company said the outage happened at 8:45 p.m. and was restored less than two hours later.
Watch: Richmond only had 3 operators at water plant at time of outage, likely didn't test backup systems
Small said his clients reported having running water again within several hours of noticing the issue.
Although on a much more minor scale, Small felt the circumstances surrounding the November inconvenience seemed similar to what happened last Monday, when officials said a power outage at the water treatment plant triggered a six-day citywide water crisis that started with a complete water outage and led to subsequent boil water advisories.
When the power went off at the water treatment plant on Jan. 6, backup and redundancy systems failed to keep the operations going as they should.
The city has not yet answered CBS 6's questions about the November power outage at the pump station and whether its redundancy systems activated and worked in that event.
“They have been aware of whatever happened on Nov. 15. They could have, through people and preparations, prevented the same thing happening now because I believe it is the same thing," Small said.
According to a 2022 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), DPU was in the process of updating the Byrd Park Pump Station. At the time, DPU was 60% through its construction design phase.
EPA regulators said they observed poor housekeeping conditions and leaking pumps at the Byrd Park facility. Additionally, the inspection report stated the pumping station did not have a generator and relied on two feeds from Dominion for electricity.
The pump station is responsible for feeding finished water from the treatment plant to the Byrd Park reservoir, which is the city's main water supply, according to the EPA report. The facility is operated manually and does not have the ability to support automatic or remote operation at the pump station.
A proposed project narrative from 2024 also showed the station's pumps had "very low reliability" and that it needed to improve its redundancy levels.
The project called for a new switch gear and automatic transfer switch, which officials said were components during last week's power outage at the treatment plant that did not work.
Small hopes completion of the project moves ahead swiftly.
“At this point in time, I'm certain they're going to be taking urgent action on every open project there is after what just happened," Small said.
And he wants to be confident that facilities responsible for delivering water to Richmonders are being well maintained.
“They need to take measures to ensure proper training or properly skilled individuals are managing that facility," he said.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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