RICHMOND, Va. — As the City of Richmond grapples with funding needed upgrades and repairs to its water treatment plant in the wake of a water crisis, it hopes the General Assembly will give it $250 million over the next two fiscal years to upgrade its aging sewer system to eliminate overflows of raw sewage into the James River.
Mayor Danny Avula’s interim spokesperson Julian Walker said Gov. Glen Youngkin proposed $50 million of that this year, and the General Assembly pledged another $50 million last year, which the city hopes they will honor.
Walker said the city estimates that it will need a total of $500 million for the project that was mandated by legislatures by 2029.
“The City of Richmond and Mayor Avula are greatly appreciative of all the GA has done to help fund and support the CSO project. In addition, Mayor Avula has had conversations with legislative leaders and is thankful for their engagement and for the continued dialogue as the city looks at longer term options for potential upgrades or modernization of the water treatment plant and the broader water service distribution service system,” Julian Walker, the interim spokesperson for Avula said.
As CBS 6 first told you in 2020, the sewage spills into the river from various storm water overflow outlets when heavy rain overwhelms the city’s sewer system.
Watch: Why human waste is allowed to flow into the James River: 'We're not a third world country'
One of Richmond’s challenges is that the city’s sewers date back to the Civil War.
The outdated system carries storm water and sewage in the same pipes to the water treatment plant.
Patrick Griffin, who owns RVA Paddlesports, said his guides and customers have to contend with occasional discharges of raw sewage into the water.
“Usually you smell it before you see it,” Griffin said.
He said the city has made progress on the issue over the past 20 years, but it’s still happening along with other events related to the aging sewer system, like a broken pipe that leaked sewage into the James River last July, which forced Griffin to push back a big kayak event.
“I think the rest of the city and the region is kind of feeling our pains that we felt in the summer with the pipeline leak,” Griffin said about the recent water crisis.
The General Assembly mandated that Richmond fix the sewer overflow issue by 2035, and the city has both interim and long-term plans to fix the problem, but it’s going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Griffin believes upgrading and repairing the water treatment plant ASAP is a top priority, but he does not want people to forget that it’s not just the water plant’s infrastructure that needs a major overhaul.
“Just keeping the conversation at the forefront is really important. Sometimes the further we get removed from these events then people tend to think oh it’s not effecting me anymore,” Griffin said. “Understanding the solutions are long term in the order of five, 10, 15 years and understanding we need to keep the pressure for that length of time."
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