Richmond officials outline after‑action review, consultants engaged as water plant repairs continue

Megan Field, senior policy adviser to the acting chief administrative officer, told the Governmental Operations Standing Committee on Jan. 13 that the administration has contracted an outside firm to produce an after‑action report on the recent water outage and that the city has also retained emergency‑management consultants to assess response and recovery needs.

Field said a contract with consultants was signed “as of about 4 o’clock yesterday,” and named HNTB as the firm under contract to perform the forensic review of what happened at the treatment plant. She said the administration has also engaged Hagerty Consulting to augment the city’s emergency management team and to develop a post‑disaster recovery plan and communications assessment.

The review and recovery effort are intended to serve separate purposes: HNTB will focus on a technical reconstruction of the plant failure and related operating practices, while Hagerty will assess the city’s emergency operations, communications with elected officials and the public, and help identify state and federal reimbursement opportunities. Jason Hoff of HNTB told the committee the firm will begin desktop analysis immediately and plans to have “boots on the ground starting next Monday” to inspect the facility, interview operations staff and develop a timeline. Hoff said HNTB will present preliminary findings in the first two weeks of its engagement.

Interim director of the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) Scott Morris told the committee he has been on the job for a matter of days and that plant repairs are underway. Morris said “we can fully operate with the demands of the system” at current levels and that reservoir conditions are being matched to customer needs. He said repairs will be done in phases — prioritizing the most critical equipment first — and that the city will rely on findings from the after‑action review to define longer‑term capacity and resiliency investments. Morris also told the committee that water quality is safe to drink, the bulk water notice had been rescinded, and that “there is no impact from lead pipes associated with that.”

Stephen Willoughby, director of emergency communications, preparedness and response, described Hagerty’s scope: assessing the city’s incident response, interviewing key stakeholders and elected officials, reviewing plans and policies, and drafting a post‑disaster recovery plan that includes a community needs assessment. Willoughby said Hagerty will help identify federal and state funding sources and technical assistance for reimbursements and for businesses that suffered revenue loss.

Council members pressed for transparency about the after‑action contract scope and price. Field and Willoughby said the administration will make scope documents available and that some cost tracking is already underway. Willoughby told the committee the Hagerty engagement is roughly $400,000. Field said the administration’s budget office is compiling a ledger of costs related to the response, including consultants, emergency purchases and potential reimbursement sources.

Several council members emphasized the need to preserve institutional knowledge about what happened. Field and Morris said operations staff who were on the ground will be interviewed as part of the technical investigation and that the city is prioritizing that work so those recollections are captured while staff are available.

The administration proposed routing different deliverables to the most relevant council committees: technical findings about the treatment plant to Governmental Operations, emergency‑management assessments to the Public Safety committee, and community support and relief questions to Health and Human Services. Field said the approach is intended to reduce repetitive briefings to council members who serve on multiple committees.

The committee asked HNTB and Hagerty to present further details of their scopes in upcoming meetings; Willoughby said Hagerty will meet with the Public Safety committee next Tuesday. HNTB said it expects to produce preliminary findings shortly after site work begins. Field said the administration will provide additional documentation and cost summaries as they become available.

The city made no formal commitments on specific capital or operating expenditures at the meeting; Morris said budget estimates will follow after the after‑action report is complete and after his team completes a detailed review of capital asset needs and the department’s long‑term CIP.