Victoria City: Subcommittee finds operational failures, staffing gaps behind two boil-water notices

The City of Victoria’s specially called council meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 13 produced an interim report from a water system review subcommittee that concluded two recent boil-water notices were caused by operational failures — not infrastructure defects — and identified specific changes the city is making to reduce the risk of recurrence.

Mayor Crocker said the subcommittee identified “root causes of the water issues” and concluded the problems “were not the result of an infrastructure problem. Rather, they were operational in nature.” The mayor said the committee’s review found “a breakdown in communications within the water treatment plant, a failure of personnel to respond appropriately to water testing data that indicated trouble, and a lack of timely implementation of the corrective action plan.”

City Manager Garza presented the subcommittee’s timetable, data and corrective steps. Garza said the city’s annual chlorine conversion — a process the city has performed since the surface water treatment plant opened — ran July 12 through Aug. 11 this year and was a planned maintenance step intended to reduce nitrification. He explained that “nitrification basically is a biological process that converts ammonia and similar nitrogen compounds into nitrites,” and that nitrification can reduce chlorine residuals that protect drinking water.

Garza told council that an initial customer complaint on July 3 near John Stockbauer and Miori led to a TCEQ…