RICHMOND, Va. — Inspection reports obtained by CBS 6 revealed that Richmond's Department of Public Utilities has been previously cited for failures related to its emergency planning and deteriorating equipment.
DPU Director April Bingham said Wednesday she can't say whether those past findings relate to the city's current water crisis, but state regulators said they'll be looking for any possible connections as part of their investigation into what went wrong.
WATCH: Tyler Layne questions Richmond leaders about storm readiness before water crisis
City officials have blamed widespread water outages on a winter storm that knocked out power at the water treatment plant which triggered flooding. Backup systems kicked in but failed to keep operations going.
Dwayne Roadcap, who heads the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Drinking Water, told CBS 6 it's already apparent that the city did not comply with some regulatory requirements that are in place to prevent these kinds of events.
“One of the things that we're looking into is why the fail-safe systems and the redundant systems didn't work, because you shouldn't have this kind of problem," Roadcap said.
At a press conference Wednesday morning, CBS 6 asked Richmond Mayor Danny Avula whether the situation could've been avoided.
WATCH: Drone video shows Richmond's water treatment plant
“Did DPU do everything it possibly could to prevent this crisis ahead of the storm? For example, did they test the backup systems before the storm? Did they ensure the reservoir was at 100% capacity? Was the plant being powered at 100% power capacity by both power sources? And essentially, was there a proper preparedness plan in place for this storm?” reporter Tyler Layne asked.
“I’m day six on the job, so I’m not sure I can answer that in any detail. I do know that our operation, on an annual basis, is going through preparedness exercises. So that will also be a part of our after-action report, looking at when was the last time that we tested on a potential outage. What is our regular rhythm for testing battery backups? In this case, the battery backup, at least on the IT system, did kick in. It just didn't last long enough," Avula responded.
CBS 6 also pressed officials about a 2022 audit of DPU's water system by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which CBS 6 obtained.
It cited Richmond with dozens of violations of federal regulatory standards including multiple corroded and deteriorated pumps at the main treatment plant, filters that were aged and cracked, inspections not being regularly performed, and limited preventative and corrective maintenance.
“Did faulty equipment contribute to this crisis at all?” Layne asked.
“I think this incident here was simply caused by an outage at the plant. Certainly, as the mayor has said, the plant is 100 years old. We have aging infrastructure, and we have to continue to focus on investments in this infrastructure. I'm not going to combine the two, because I can’t, right today, say that they were connected," Bingham said.
FULL NEWS CONFERENCE: Richmond Water Crisis Day 3
The report further explained that Richmond “does not perform tabletop emergency scenario planning exercises in the event of large-scale power failures” but sometimes participates in the fire department's exercises.
EPA additionally cited the city for having an emergency response plan that was outdated and not finalized. The plan was last updated in 2017. Though the audit occurred in July in 2022, and a report was generated in October 2022, Bingham did not provide the EPA with the city's response until January 3, 2025 -- five days ago.
In her response, Bingham highlighted the scale and complexity of the facility, but added, “Redundancy is a key feature of our system, ensuring that critical services remain uninterrupted despite the temporary unavailability of certain assets."
Three days later, that redundancy system would fail, causing a water crisis across Virginia's capital city and surrounding counties.
When asked why it took more than two years to respond to the EPA's findings, a city spokesperson said DPU wasn't "presented with the findings" until August 2024. CBS 6 followed up with the EPA to ask about the timeline and is waiting for a response.
As part of the city's response to the EPA report, DPU acknowledged many of the findings and said it would address cracking and corroding equipment through refurbishment and a larger capital improvement project. A timeline for that project was not mentioned.
DPU also acknowledged its outdated emergency response plan and said an update would be completed in early 2025.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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