Mayor Avula’s new water fix hinges on the next governor
Mayor Danny Avula speaks at Richmond City Hall. Photo by Andrew Kerley.
Heciel Nieves Bonilla, Assistant News Editor
The city of Richmond is working to fix its backlog in repairs to its water system with multiple projects after continued distribution issues and a water crisis that left hundreds of thousands of people with little to no drinkable water for days in January.
On Jan. 6, most city residents and many in surrounding counties were left without potable water, and later running water at all, after a power outage during a blizzard flooded Richmond’s Water Treatment Plant and shut down its IT system.
Mayor Danny Avula sent a letter to Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Oct. 8 requesting $80 million in state funds split between the next two fiscal years. The money would support capital improvements to the water system while “minimizing the need for further rate increases.”
Avula told The CT the letter also included a list of needed capital investments along with the flat sum, and those ideas were “vetted by the region.” Avula has been coordinating with the Regional Group on Drinking Water Strategy — which includes the governments of Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover.
“We do check in on a regular basis,” Avula said. “At this stage, we are looking forward to the governor convening a group of us to talk about how to build support and hopefully have the governor place some investment in our water treatment plan in the budget.”
Avula’s requested $80 million hinges on the approval of the Virginia General Assembly and the governor. While Youngkin will submit a budget proposal to the General Assembly in December, he will not give it final approval in the spring. That duty will be left up to whoever is elected as the next governor.
Local resident Owen Martin was one of many Richmonders who bore the brunt of water troubles back in January. He is skeptical the plans to fix the system will go through.
“The water crisis was terrible,” Martin said. “A lot of restaurants were shut down, I definitely remember boiling a lot of water. Yeah, mid. Will it get fixed? Probably not. Is that $80 million really gonna go to fixing that? We’ll see.”
The city has already allotted over $190 million from fiscal years 2022-2026 to the upkeep and improvement of stormwater, water distribution and wastewater systems, according to its capital improvement plan.
This includes increasing the “wet weather treatment capacity” at the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant and drainage improvement projects in Shockoe Bottom and Battery Park.
Scott Morris, director of the Department of Public Utilities, shared a draft for a 10-year plan to fix and maintain the treatment plant, including goals to backup power sources and replace aging infrastructure through 2027.
Maintenance of public utilities in Richmond — like water and sewage — are paid for through both utility bills and property taxes. Individual homeowners pay a disproportionate share of the costs because of Richmond’s high number of publicly owned lots, according to Samuel Parker, a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter who has covered the system.
“[The city] has so much untaxable real estate because the state government’s here, because VCU is here, it’s constantly cash strapped,” Parker said. “It’s dependent utterly on single family homeowners for most of its revenues […] The state government has very little obligation to the city in terms of utility bills and real estate taxes. And I think the city could make an argument that it’s time to pay up.”
Richmond’s main water treatment plant is over 100 years old, according to the city’s public utilities webpage, and though it has been upgraded and expanded, its age makes backlog upkeep difficult compared to surrounding localities.
On top of that, some of Richmond’s largest customers for water are the surrounding counties, which depend on the city’s aging infrastructure for much of their supply.
Richard Meagher, a political science professor at Randolph-Macon College and host of the RVA’s Got Issues podcast, said the crisis reflects a national problem of lack of investment in infrastructure.
“Mayor Avula’s request to the governor reflects an unfortunate reality — local government lacks the resources to adequately address necessary improvements, let alone regular maintenance,” Meagher said. “If we’re going to address our infrastructure crisis, we absolutely will have to rely on state and federal funding.”
Meagher noted the mayor has taken action on immediate improvements since January, and does not expect the water crisis to repeat itself this winter — but warned that it “doesn’t mean there [won’t] be another infrastructure crisis in our future.”
