RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond is giving taxpayers and city utility customers extra time to pay their bills this month because of the week-long crisis after the city's water plant went offline Monday and triggered a boil water advisory.
"Bills for such tax and ratepayers with due dates in January 2025 will have a grace period during which they may be paid without penalty or interest of five business days added," officials announced Sunday.
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The Richmond region's water crisis ended on Saturday after Richmond Mayor Danny Avula said the Virginia Department of Health lifted the Boil Water Advisory for Richmond as well as Hanover, Henrico and Goochland counties.
The news came after two rounds of clean laboratory tests, so Richmond's water supply has been "confirmed safe for drinking," officials wrote.
“We have reached our goal, Richmond,” Avula said. “After an incredible amount of work by so many dedicated public servants — as well as regional, state, and federal partners — we have received the news we’ve been waiting for: With two rounds of clean test results, we have verified that our water is clean and safe for people to drink."
Avula said Thursday that an automatic power transfer failure at the Richmond water treatment plant set off a "cascade" of events Monday morning that ultimately led to the city's water crisis.
He said a plant electrician made the call to manually switch the Richmond Water Treatment Plant to a secondary Dominion Energy power source when the plant lost power Monday morning instead of activating the backup generator when a process that should have automatically transferred power to that second Dominion Energy source failed.
The chain of events stemming from the failure of the automatic transfer to that secondary Dominion Energy source triggered the water treatment plant flooded sparking a week-long water crisis in Richmond and surrounding counties.
WATCH: DPU operators were unaware of manual process to stop flooding at water plant
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