RICHMOND, Va. — A clearer picture is starting to emerge of the communication, or lack thereof, between Richmond’s now former Director of the Department of Public Utilities, April Bingham, and surrounding areas that rely on the city’s water about the severity of the crisis at the city’s water treatment plant in early January.
CBS 6 read a third-party report commissioned by Henrico County looking into how the county handled the crisis, and combined those findings with a public records request we received back from Richmond of Bingham’s text communications on the day the crisis began.
Watch: Henrico may address its own needs after Richmond water crisis
At 6:55 a.m. the Superintendent of Richmond’s plant texted his boss, Bingham, that the plant experienced a loss of power and production was down.
Six minutes later, a Henrico DPU employee took a call from staff at the Richmond plant. He was told Richmond was having trouble filtering, and requested that Henrico back off drawing water from Richmond.
Henrico gets approximately one-third of its water from Richmond’s plant.
The Henrico employee told the third-party investigator, Aqua Law, that he was not informed of the severity of the situation in Richmond, and he was left with the impression that the Richmond plant would soon be back to normal operations.
But Richmond’s Water Treatment Plant was flooding, and fast. It was about to experience catastrophic failure.
“We did not know the severity or the potential duration, and that’s what only seemed to come to the light of day at 2:34 Monday afternoon,” Chris Pomeroy, the President of Aqua Law, told the Henrico County Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning.
Watch Full Meeting: Henrico leaders discuss historic water crisis
At 7:08 a.m., an unidentified number texted Bingham asking if they should wait on the plant’s update before posting anything to the city’s web emergency operations center.
One minute later, the plant superintendent texted Bingham telling her that the “Counties have been notified. Generators are on. We will need some time to assess and continue to respond.”
In the days following, Mayor Danny Avula told reporters the generators were, actually, not turned on.
Bingham then texted the unidentified number requesting that they “not post anything yet” to the city’s web emergency operations center about the situation, and that she would talk through the 8 a.m. update to that center.
By 7:30 a.m., Chesterfield County’s Director of Utilities George Hayes reached out to Bingham via text and said he heard Richmond had a power outage at its water treatment plant and requested Chesterfield limit what it takes in while Richmond assesses the situation.
He asked Bingham if she wanted Chesterfield’s Emergency Operations Center to "reach out to Dominion to get status and put as a priority?”
Five minutes later, Richmond’s Director of Emergency Communications, Preparedness and Response, Stephen Wiloughby, texted Bingham requesting the address of the power outage.
He told her his contact at Dominion “Did not have the outage at the plant on his list."
By 8 a.m., Bingham told Hayes that Dominion had a crew on the way, and just eleven minutes later, she told him: “Power has been restored! Not sure if it was Dominion-related. I remain in contact with the team. And will be en route to the plant shortly.”
Meanwhile, additional Henrico DPU employees continued to check in with Richmond, according to the third-party report, but according to what they told Aqua Law, Richmond continued to tell them the distribution system was looking good and left the impression they would soon be back to normal operation.
At 9:18 a.m., a Henrico DPU employee told Henrico’s DPU Director Bentley Chan via email that the Richmond Water Treatment Plant was down and Richmond could not provide an exact time when water production would resume.
Richmond was relying on its finished water storage to supply customers, including Henrico County, at that time.
“There was increasing concern as the timeline was extending and extending, it was getting uncomfortable,” Pomeroy told Henrico’s Board of Supervisors.
By 11:51 a.m., Bingham texted her boss, now Interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg, with an update about the plant.
In her update, she stated “We have ALL HANDS on deck,” both sides of the water plant “are underwater,” “If we can get one side FULLY drained, the electricians can start to inspect and make repairs so we can start production again,” and if they could start production again to refill the reservoir they would “avoid a boil water alert.”
By 2:30 that afternoon, Henrico’s Chan reached out to Hayes with Chesterfield County by phone and learned he was unaware Richmond’s plant was down.
He said all he had been told by Richmond was that Richmond experienced a power outage earlier that morning and Bingham said power had been restored, which indicated to him that the problem had been solved.
Chan attempted to call Bingham at 2:14 p.m.
She called him back twenty minutes later and told him “the Richmond WTF was down and, critically, that it might not even be able to restart that day.”
“We talked about the delay in director-to-director notice. It was absent until Henrico initiated it,” Pomeroy told Henrico’s Board of Supervisors.
Bingham then asked Chan to organize a call with regional partners.
Four hours later, Richmond’s supply of water to Henrico’s East End ran dry.
Dan Schmitt, the Chair of the Henrico County Board of Supervisors, asked Pomeroy, “Four hours and 14 minutes after this county was notified there was a critical threat to our water supply?"
"Yes, that’s an incredibly short period of time,” Pomeroy responded.
From that time forward, Pomeroy said Richmond was repeatedly too optimistic and raised false hopes about water restoration.
“The estimates, for whatever reason, the struggle to restore water production at the Richmond water facility, they were almost always wrong,” Pomeroy said.
Chan also told the board that he was not receiving texts from Bingham as the crisis continued because she was texting his landline phone as opposed to his cell phone.
And, even after Bingham was told what Chan’s cell phone number was, he said he still did not receive a text from her until later in the week.
Asked about the report, a City of Richmond spokesperson gave CBS 6 the following statement:
The early January service interruption at the City’s water treatment plant was caused by a power outage due to a winter storm that descended on Richmond. The power outage resulted in equipment failure that caused flooding at the facility, which complicated efforts to immediately restore service.
The City brought in additional personnel, contractors, and specialists during the immediate response to the water service interruption and was in regular communication with local, state, and regional partners about the situation. That communication began on Monday, January 6 when the power outage occurred and continued throughout the duration of the water restoration effort.
Since January, the City has invested in new equipment at the water treatment plant to strengthen resiliency at the facility. This includes investments in primary and secondary system power sources, temporary auxiliary onsite pumps to enhance services, and repairs and upgrades to existing equipment.
The City has also brought in a new Interim Director of Public Utilities (DPU), Dr. Scott Morris, to oversee plant operations, among other responsibilities. On his watch, new processes and protocols have been implemented to support continuity of operations, including enhanced staffing protocols during inclement weather events, and regular checks of facility equipment, fuel, chemicals, and systems.
The City and other agencies continue to evaluate the circumstances surrounding the water outage with the assistance of firms that specialize in that kind of analysis. Henrico County has issued the findings of one such investigation, which is largely focused on its locality-specific response.
From the early moments of the water service interruption, the City pledged to conduct an independent investigation of what happened on January 6 and how events unfolded over the following days. The City retained HNTB, an engineering and infrastructure firm, to conduct an after-action assessment of the outage as well as subsequent response and recovery efforts related to the water treatment plant. A preliminary report from HNTB with summary findings is expected to be available later this week.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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