Joint meeting between Henrico supervisors, Richmond City Council ends without clear sense about what comes next

A joint meeting between the Henrico Board of Supervisors and Richmond City Council Monday afternoon about the region’s water needs and future collaborative possibilities ended without any firm agreement about what should happen next – but with a general consensus that the two localities (as well as Chesterfield and Hanover counties) must continue working together with urgency to develop specific plans.

Richmond Mayor Danny Avula has proposed the creation of a water advisory group – composed of subject matter experts, elected officials and administrators from each of the four localities – that would be tasked with making a recommendation about the future of the Richmond water treatment plant for the elected bodies to consider; he said he’d like consensus on firm next steps in time for officials to seek state funding from the General Assembly during next year’s budget process.

The Richmond City Council will discuss that proposal during its July 7 meeting, City Council President Cynthia Newbille said during Monday’s meeting at the Richmond Department of Public Utilities building on Commerce Road, and then will direct Avula to communicate with the other localities about the council’s desires.

The localities are trying to determine the best path forward to ensure the long-term sustainability of the plant, which suffered a catastrophic failure in January that led to several days of water outages for some customers in the region, including thousands in Eastern and Northern Henrico, whose water comes from the plant. Three other smaller incidents since then have had city and county residents on edge and elected officials in the county worried about whether – or when – similar problems could occur again.

As part of a 1994 agreement, Henrico is contractually obligated to purchase about 12 million gallons of water per day from the city through July 1, 2040. Monday, Avula suggested that an early end to that agreement could be among the possibilities on the table, if the localities decide that joint funding and management of the Richmond plant is a better short- and long-term option.

“At some point – I think at this point – there is an opportunity to rethink that contractual arrangement” if another path forward makes more sense for all involved, Avula said.

The meeting lasted only about 90 minutes, as planned; the two bodies received updates about each locality’s water systems during the first half (from new Richmond Public Utilities Director Scott Morris and Henrico Public Utilities Director Bentley Chan) and then spent the second half discussing a variety of water-related issues.

Henrico supervisors Roscoe Cooper, III (Fairfield District), Misty Roundtree (Three Chopt District), Jody Rogish (Tuckahoe District) and Tyrone Nelson (Varina District) each told their Richmond counterparts that their primary concern was being able to ensure that Henrico water customers would not need to worry about potential water outages again.

“We don’t want to go through that again,” Nelson said, referencing the January outage. “If this was our water treatment plant and you were getting water from us, you’d have questions just like we have questions. Whatever we can do to help, that’s why we were here. But I don’t want you to think that we’re trying to force anything on you.”

Richmond City Council member Ellen Robertson said that no one should worry about the city’s water treatment plant or its ability to provide water to Henrico and other localities for the duration of the existing contracts.

“Our plant, there is no reason for you to be concerned,” she said.

Responded Nelson, somewhat surprised: “The first time that I’ve heard that the water treatment plant was good was today. . . That’s good, we don’t want to worry about the water treatment plant, that’s why we’re here. The word that I have to go on now is Councilwoman Ellen Robertson said it’s all good, the water treatment plant is fine.”

Nelson and Roundtree also took issue with a line of comments from Richmond City Council member Kenya Gibson, who suggested that the region may have to address increasing water needs as the result of a flood of new data centers (many of which exist or are being planned in Henrico).

County planners, though, have indicated during rezoning cases for data centers in the past several years that water usage at new data centers typically is very minimal – not much more than what a large office building might require. Chan told the joint meeting Monday that the QTS data center in Sandston uses only about a third of the water that was approved for use at the same building three decades ago, when it was a computer chip manufacturing plant.

Responding to questions from Roundtree about what level of risk exists for another catastrophic failure of the Richmond water treatment plant, Morris said that all imminent concerns identified by the Virginia Department of Health related to the plant’s January failure had been addressed.

“I think folks just want to know ‘Is it going to break again?’” Roundtree said.

Morris told officials that the city is planning other capital improvement project enhancements to its water system and the plant in the next five years or so that could exceed $250 million.

This is a breaking news report; this article will be updated.