Preliminary HNTB report pins Richmond water-plant outage on power transfer failure; city to operate in "summer mode" year-round

The Government Operations Committee heard a presentation on preliminary findings from HNTB on the January water-treatment-plant outage, where city staff said the plant experienced a complete loss of power that led to about 36 hours of outage and flooding in the basement that damaged equipment.

The preliminary report, summarized by Anthony Scott Morris, the city's director of public utilities, found that a bus tie failed to transfer power from the primary feed to the secondary feed, and that an effluent valve and UPS-related failures contributed to the loss of service. "The water treatment plant experienced a complete loss of power," Morris said during the Feb. committee meeting. He told council members that the plant had been operating in a "winter mode" at the time of the failure and that operating in that configuration presented a single point of failure.

Why it matters: the outage prompted emergency deliveries, a state of emergency declaration and separate state-level scrutiny. Committee members pressed staff for detail on accountability, operational changes and cost estimates ahead of the city's March budget schedule.

HNTB recommendations and city response

Morris listed the chief recommendations identified in the preliminary HNTB report: operate the plant in a more-redundant "summer mode" going forward; develop a bus-tie failure plan; implement severe-storm response protocols; install filter effluent valves and UPS devices with a minimum one-hour run time; add SCADA monitoring; expand and digitize standard operating procedures (SOPs) and train staff; review staffing toward adding one operator per shift; raise electrical equipment above basement flood levels where practical; and provide an automatic transfer switch for existing backup generators.

Morris said plant staff have revised and begun training on a bus-tie failure SOP and that about 53 SOPs across the plant will be updated and rolled out with initial and recurring training. "We are always operating in a summer mode from this point on," Morris told the committee, describing summer mode as the more redundant configuration that avoids the single-point failure seen in winter mode.

On hardware projects, Morris said the automatic transfer switch project is under way and is expected to be substantially complete with generator service by November 2025. He also described a planned sequence of field tests for new UPS units and valve actuators and annual verification thereafter.

Reports, access and parallel reviews

Morris told the committee that HNTB has had broad access to staff interviews, communications and as-built documents the consultants requested. He said an interim HNTB report was expected "within a week or so," with a more detailed final report following within roughly a month. Morris added that the Virginia Department of Health's investigation was receiving the same information to ensure consistent review across agencies.

Committee members asked why the preliminary report did not address backup generator engagement; Morris said the preliminary work focused on the immediate cause and that generator engagement would be examined in the interim and final reports.

Costs and timeline for a full accounting

When asked about money spent so far, Morris said the mayor had referenced about $5,000,000 in expenditures related to actuators and related work and that a comprehensive accounting of all costs for remediation and upgrades would be provided after full restoration. He offered an interim cost summary as early as April 2025 but said a complete tally tied to all recommended projects would likely be available by November 2025, when the automatic transfer switch project is projected to be complete.

Remaining questions and oversight

Council members pressed on whether past decisions to operate in winter mode were avoidable and what steps the city would take to demonstrate future reliability to the Virginia Office of Drinking Water. Morris said he could not speak to earlier managerial choices but that the administration and he had agreed to the continuous summer-mode operation and to adopt additional staffing, SOP and infrastructure changes to increase resilience. Council members asked for the HNTB interim and final reports to be made available to the council agenda for public transparency and for HNTB to return to present and answer questions.

What happens next

Morris and administration officials said they intend to make interim materials available to council and that HNTB and city staff will continue follow-up briefings to committees and oversight bodies. The committee also requested clearer timing for when follow-up documents and cost summaries would be posted to agenda materials as the city prepares its March budget proposal.

(Questions and discussion in the committee also referenced the EPA's earlier 2022 recommendations and parallel oversight by the Virginia Office of Drinking Water and the Virginia Department of Health.)