RICHMOND, Va. — New emails obtained by CBS 6 through a public records request shed light on how officials who regulate Richmond's drinking water system were reacting as the city rolled out the findings of its investigation into the water crisis.
On Feb. 14, the Virginia Department of Health's (VDH) Drinking Water Director Dwayne Roadcap sent an email to three staff members with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) weighing in on the preliminary water crisis report, which was completed by external engineering consultants with HNTB, and a press conference held by Richmond Mayor Danny Avula and DPU Director Scott Morris.
In it, Roadcap seemed perplexed by an answer Morris gave to a question from CBS 6 reporter Melissa Hipolit when she asked why no one turned on a generator when the power went out at the Water Treatment Plant on Jan. 6. The power outage, and subsequent failures of backup power systems to keep the facility operating, is what triggered water production to halt.
“Do you think or would you recommend that staff would have activated backup generators upon the loss of power?” Hipolit asked.
“I believe they took the proper procedures in trying to restore power," Morris said.
But Roadcap stated in his email, “Scott Morris says that staff followed proper protocols and didn’t need to active back-up generators. This thinking, on the surface, does not make sense to me — when would the back-up generators ever be needed if not for a complete power outage?”
Renee Bryant, an enforcement official with the EPA, appeared to agree. She responded to Roadcap's email saying, "I am also confused about the comment re: the appropriate time to use a generator."
Roadcap then sent another email to Bryant on this same thread, but VDH completely redacted the contents of that message. The agency cited a Freedom of Information Act exemption that shields working papers of the governor's office from mandatory disclosure. However, no one from the governor's office is listed as a contact who would have sent or received this email. CBS 6 has asked VDH for more information regarding the use of this exemption and is waiting to hear back.
A couple weeks after the release of the preliminary report, the city released a more comprehensive follow-up report. In that report, HNTB stated the decision not to turn on a backup generator was a "prudent course of action" because staff were focused in restoring the primary power source. However, a trained electrician was not on site to complete that restoration of power in a timely manner.
Roadcap's Feb. 14 email also highlighted a difference between some of the initial public messaging between the city and the state regarding the cause of the water crisis. While the city put more of an emphasis on faulty equipment, VDH has been more critical of DPU for failing to prepare, respond, and prevent a water emergency.
Roadcap wrote in his email, “The primary cause of the water crisis is “people — process” issues, including lack of leadership and failure to make good decisions, much more so than an equipment issue.”
On Wednesday, CBS 6 asked Mayor Avula for a response to Roadcap's opinion.
“We know there a leadership changeover at DPU. I’m wondering if you agree with Mr. Roadcap that this really does boil down to a leadership failure and bad decision making?” reporter Tyler Layne asked.
"I think I've been pretty clear from the beginning, and I think that all of the studies have shown... that it was a combination of a mechanical failure. A power outage led to the failure in the automatic transfer switch. And then there was a people and process part of this too like making sure that we were practicing our emergency response. There are clear indications from the investigation that there are ways that we can improve that. And that's the work that Dr. Morris has done as he's come in and made sure that we have plans that are clearly written, clearly displayed, clearly practiced on, prepared in advance of emergency weather events. I think all of those things are true. I think it is only a partial story to not recognize that there was a machine system failure that initiated this event, and that there was a people/process part of it as well," Avula said.
VDH has contracted its own engineers to conduct a separate investigation into the water crisis, which will analyze root causes, capital investments, and what should have happened in the response to the power outage.
That report is expected to be released in April.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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