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 (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) site visit on July 8. TCEQ testing, Garza said, showed the system had reached the red trigger levels in the nitrification action plan and required escalation. City staff attempted localized flushing but ultimately performed a free-chlorine conversion to restore residuals; the first boil-water notice lasted six days because of the severity of nitrification and the time required for the conversion to propagate through the system. Garza said there were no positive bacteria tests during the incidents.

The subcommittee attributed the first notice to a combination of low consumption in parts of the distribution system, insufficient flushing maintenance and delayed implementation of the nitrification action plan. Specific operational weaknesses cited included paper-based logging of residuals (rather than continuously accessible electronic records), unclear or incomplete standard operating procedures, and a workplace culture that deferred decisions to plant management rather than empowering operators to act.

Garza said the second boil-water notice occurred on Aug. 6 in a low-pressure area near the airport. Staff were flushing that area the morning of Aug. 6 but could not achieve targeted chlorine residuals before a TCEQ inspector on site declined to grant the 24-hour grace period the agency sometimes allows; the city issued the notice at about 5:40 p.m. and staff reported having restored the chlorine residual in that area by 6 p.m. The city then followed TCEQ’s process — confirm residuals, collect bacteriological samples, wait roughly 24 hours for results — before rescinding the notice.

The subcommittee and staff provided several quantitative findings and near-term changes: tower residual monitoring changed from weekly to daily; nitrification testing was increased from every 90 days to weekly; staff are converting paper logs into shared electronic files while pursuing software that can trigger alerts; automated flusher maintenance checks were established after one automated flusher in the affected area failed; and the public works assistant director and operations manager are now maintaining daily on-site presence at the plant while a permanent plant manager is hired.

Garza reported staffing and infrastructure context: the surface water treatment plant has 15 authorized positions, of which four were vacant at the time of the review; operators’ average tenure is about 3.5 years; the plant was fully staffed only seven of the previous 30 months; roughly 60 miles of the distribution system are cast-iron (about 15% of total mains); and the system includes about 200 monthly-required flushing points and 13 automated flushers. The city also cited a drought-contingency conservation period (stage 3 from May 21 through June 13) and seasonal rain as factors that reduced system demand and increased water age, which can promote nitrification.

Immediate and next steps the city reported include hiring a new surface water treatment plant manager, pursuing retention and recruitment for operations staff, developing contingency lists of experienced retired operators or supplemental staff, cross-training utilities division staff, finalizing a software-based alerting approach for residuals, evaluating in-tank mixers and additional automated flushers, and completing an external assessment and training partnership with the Texas Optimization Program (a TCEQ training resource) scheduled for late August and into September.

Councilwoman Butler had asked about the $10 bill credit the city promised during the July boil-water event; City Manager Garza said the credit was intended for single-family residential meters and was rolling out across four billing cycles in August. Garza said the credit appears on bills as a negative line item listed as “Other” (negative $10) at the bottom of the itemized bill.

The subcommittee will prepare a final written report that the city said will include a full timeline, supporting data, risk-reduction recommendations and a summary of TCEQ’s involvement. Mayor Crocker said the goal is to act “with precision and with purpose” and to provide further public updates as the subcommittee finalizes its recommendations.

No formal motions or council votes were recorded at the special meeting; the session was an informational work session and was adjourned after the presentation and questions.