RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) – Monday night, city residents were not holding back, expressing their frustration over countless water issues in one meeting.

“This is a failure of leadership, this isn’t about backlog, it’s not about weather events, it’s about decades of neglect,” said one city resident.

In another meeting, the city council pushes for transparency, answers and accountability.

“Rather than say,’ Don’t worry,’ every time a problem comes, we are going to fix it really fast,” said Councilman Andrew Breton. “I think we want to see where the risks are and what steps we are going to take to mitigate those risks before they become published.”

In response, DPU Director Scott Morris says getting the water treatment plant fully reliable is an uphill battle.

“There are challenges, so I just want to acknowledge this is going to be difficult,” Morris said. “This isn’t a snap of your fingers type of discussion, there’s a lot of investments we’ll have to do.”

Within the last week, two significant issues in Richmond interrupted water service for both Richmond and Henrico residents.


First, clogged filters sparked a boil water advisory in the river city, and delayed maintenance was one cause.


Two days later, a water main break in the city caused some Henrico residents to lose water pressure.

As of Monday night, crews are still working to repair that.

“We have a line stop available. Once we get that installed, we’ll close the other lines, and once we get pressure off the pipe, we will go in and do the other repair,” Morris said about the 7th and Canal St. repairs.

A presentation given to city council members outlines a 10-year plan to upgrade the water treatment plant facility.

Starting with critical infrastructure upgrades and a robust preventative maintenance program.

Both January’s water crisis and the latest boil water advisory seem to have stemmed from poor maintenance of plant equipment.

Morris highlights years of neglect of infrastructure at the plant as one of it’s challenges moving forward.

“I’m here for the long hall, I’m here to make sure we get the improvements that we need.” Morris said.