Hopewell council reviews options to shore up wastewater plant as consultants cite urgent staffing and capital shortfalls

Consultants presented to the Hopewell City Council a range of options to address urgent safety, compliance and operational shortfalls at the Hopewell Water Renewal Treatment Facility and urged the city to move deliberately but urgently on leadership, staffing and capital investment.

The consulting team told council members the facility currently treats about 27,000,000 gallons of wastewater a day and serves the city, nearby installations and several large manufacturers. "The Hopewell Water Renewal Treatment Facility currently treats, as you all know, 27,000,000 gallons of wastewater a day," the consultant known in the record as Bob said during the presentation. He and other presenters said an engineering assessment and follow-up studies show substantial backlog and ongoing risks.

Dewberry’s condition assessment, presented by city consultants, identifies high-priority safety and compliance items that the consultants summarized as about $21,000,000, with additional mid-level and continuous-improvement buckets of roughly $420,000 and $2,000,000, respectively. The presenters cautioned that some Dewberry items are initial studies that must be completed before final cost estimates can be confirmed. Consultants also cited a separate engineering estimate in the materials that listed roughly $24,000,000 in needed improvements and said actual needs may exceed the study totals.

A staffing study by Hazen & Sawyer recommended increasing plant staff from 56 positions in 2025 to about 71, a recommended addition of 15–17 positions. The consultants said the largest gaps are in maintenance (eight positions) and operations (three positions), and that the plant has relied heavily on overtime and reactive operations rather than preventative maintenance.

Consultants framed three primary pathways for council consideration: recruit a high-performing general manager and keep the plant city-operated; contract operations to a private operator while the city retains ownership; or sell the plant or pursue a public–private partnership. They listed trade-offs: retaining the plant preserves local control and revenue but keeps liability and requires strong hiring and funding; contracting can bring experienced operators but still requires city oversight and capital responsibility; selling or pursuing a partnership can transfer operational risk and yield upfront funds but would reduce city control and revenue streams and require complex legal and procurement work.

Colonel Rich Bandelowski, installation commander at Fort Lee, urged partnership and noted the installation’s reliance on the plant. "We transfer about 2,000,000 gallons of water to the wastewater treatment facility daily," Bandelowski said, adding that DoD and installation leadership have been briefed and may pursue federal funding options for shared infrastructure risk.

Council members repeatedly asked for concrete fiscal modeling. One councilor asked what rate structures and financial models would look like under the different options; consultants said the city needs further study to present accurate long‑term numbers and that some figures cited in the Dewberry study are placeholders until follow-up studies are complete. Consultants noted a five-year capital maintenance plan was developed and included in the FY26 budget and that monthly oversight meetings and reconciliations through 2023 have been implemented.

City staff told council members an RFP for executive recruitment services — aimed at filling the water renewal director role and the city manager position — was circulated to council earlier the same day, with council asked to submit comments by the next meeting. The consulting team and several council members emphasized the need to prioritize leadership recruitment as part of any path forward.

Formally, the council had gone briefly into a closed session earlier in the meeting under Virginia code section 2.2 dash 3 7 11 a 1 to discuss assignment and performance of specific appointees and under the Virginia code section 2.2 dash 3 7 11 8 8 to consult with counsel about specific legal matters related to an HWR contract; those motions passed on roll call during the meeting record. The session concluded with a public certification that only the matters identified in the closed-session motion were discussed.

Next steps recorded in the meeting: staff will provide financial and rate‑structure analyses describing how customer rates could change under each option; the executive-recruitment RFP will be finalized after council input; and the consultants and staff will return to council at upcoming meetings with revised cost and staffing plans. The council adjourned after the presentation and discussion.

(Reporting note: direct quotes and figures in this report are taken from the council meeting transcript and the consultant slide packets presented to the council.)