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Posted on April 03, 2025

Independent investigation provides detailed analysis and recommendations to prevent future water service disruptions

Richmond, VA – The City of Richmond is releasing the final After-Action Assessment report from HNTB, the independent firm investigating the January water crisis that affected residents and businesses across the region. This in-depth assessment is the final of HNTB's findings, following preliminary and draft reports, released on February 14th and March 3rd, respectively.

The assessment builds upon earlier findings, offering additional insights into the root causes of the water outage and a review of the City's response. It expands upon earlier short- and long-term recommendations—several of which have already been implemented—with robust and concrete measures which the City can implement to better respond to and prevent future crises.

"I want to thank HNTB for their thorough investigation and comprehensive report," said Mayor Danny Avula. "We are committed to taking the necessary steps to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again, and I'm grateful that the recommendations provided in this final assessment will put us on the right path. I have been working closely with our Director of Public Utilities, Dr. Morris, and across City government, to enact a number of these changes as quickly as possible. Resiliency in the delivery of critical services to Richmonders and the surrounding communities is a top priority for this government."

Key Findings

The final report confirms findings delivered in earlier versions, namely that the Jan. 6 incident began with a total loss of power at the City's water treatment plant during a winter storm. The outage and resulting service disruption were compounded by two critical factors:

1. The water treatment plant was operating in "Winter Mode," which relied on a single critical component instead of the more resilient "Summer Mode," which had redundant components.
2. When the main power feed failed, an automatic transfer switch (called a "Bus Tie") failed to activate, preventing power from switching to the second available power source.

This combination of factors led to a loss of power at the plant for approximately 80 minutes, which led to water flooding the plant's basement and damage to essential electrical equipment that resulted in the service disruption.

In addition to a thorough review of the root causes, the report goes on to analyze the City's response and highlights underlying factors which contributed to the Jan. 6 service disruption, including inadequate staffing and training, a lack of comprehensive standard operating procedures, and deficiencies in internal and external crisis communications, among others.

Recommendations and Immediate Actions Already Taken

HNTB provided a number of short- (3-6 month) and long-term (multi-year) recommendations to mitigate the impacts of future crisis events. Under the leadership of Director Morris, the City has already implemented several key recommendations:

• The water treatment plant now permanently operates in "Summer Mode" with dual power feeds, eliminating the single point of power failure that contributed to the January incident.
• New emergency response protocols have been established for inclement weather events.
• Staffing standards have been upgraded, particularly for critical operations, electrical, and engineering positions during potential emergency situations.
• Emergency communications protocols are under review and will be updated to ensure consistent, clear, and accurate communications.
• Inspection protocols for equipment, fuel, chemicals, and systems have been strengthened.
• Approximately $5 million has been invested in critical plant repairs and upgrades.

These improvements have already shown positive results, with the plant successfully maintaining operations through several subsequent winter and spring storms without service disruptions.

Next Steps

The City will continue to implement recommendations outlined in the HNTB assessment, including improvements to backup power systems, valve controls, communication protocols, emergency operations, and staff training.

In addition to the HNTB assessment, the City is awaiting a separate assessment from Hagerty Consulting, an Illinois-based independent emergency management consulting firm tasked with reviewing and making recommendations to the City's incident response procedures. That report will be made available to the public, once completed.

The City remains committed to full transparency throughout this process and to implementing the necessary improvements to ensure resilient water service for residents.

• Final After-Action Assessment Report
• January 2025 Winter Storm Water Emergency Q&A, City Council

April 3, 2025

The City of Richmond’s Department of Finance has updated the mailing addresses for personal property taxes, business personal property taxes, and real estate taxes. This change is part of the ongoing efforts to streamline operations and ensure timely processing of resident payments. 

To ensure there no disruptions in payment processing, city residents and businesses are being asked to update their records with the new mailing address below at their financial intuition.

Personal Property Tax:

City of Richmond Department of Finance
PO Box 38097
Philadelphia, PA 19101-8097

Real Estate & Business Personal Property Taxes

City of Richmond Department of Finance
PO Box 70622
Philadelphia, PA 19176-0622

The Department of Public Utilities has also updated their payment address to:

Utility Payments

City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities
PO Box 70621
Philadelphia, PA 19176-0621

Please note any payments that are sent to the previous mailing addresses after June 30, 2025 may experience delays in processing.

Posted on April 02, 2025

Mailroom staff to be retrained on proper protocols

Richmond, VA — The City of Richmond's Department of Information Technology, which oversees the City's mailroom, is informing the public about a clerical error that occurred on February 28, 2025. Due to a mailroom mistake, debt setoff letters for 226 individuals were sent to the incorrect addresses.

Information contained in those letters included:

• Name
• Address
• Claim number
• Amount due

The Department of Information Technology has verified no further impact to other individuals and has started the process of notifying those impacted. Moving forward, mailroom staff will be re-trained on the processes and protocols to make sure mail is delivered to the proper recipient.

"I take protecting privacy incredibly seriously — whether it be digital privacy or the privacy of mailed documents," said Charles Todd, Director of the Department of Information Technology. "I apologize, and I want Richmonders to know we will review our processes and make the necessary adjustments to prevent this from happening again."

Affected individuals will receive a direct communication from the City of Richmond with further details. For additional questions, call RVA311 at 3-1-1 or 804-646-7000.

Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2025

City of Richmond Launches FOIA Reading Room

Also: FOIA training mandated for Deputy Directors and Directors

To promote transparency and accountability, the City of Richmond has launched a pilot FOIA Reading Room with records pertaining to the 2025 Water Crisis. The reading room contains documents of substantial public interest that have been previously released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

"I said throughout my campaign and many times over the course of these first three months in office: Transparency is one of my core values," said Mayor Danny Avula. "The City's FOIA team has worked incredibly hard over the last several months, and now I'm asking them to do a little bit more."

"We wanted to pilot a FOIA Reading Room to promote transparency and accountability, save Richmond residents time and money, and reduce the administrative burden to staff," said Julia Holmes, the City's FOIA Manager. "My job, making sure the public has access to public records, is so important, and I'm excited for this new tool that will hopefully make it easier for folks to do that."

Whether a record is of substantial public interest and included in the FOIA Reading Room is determined in the best judgment of City officials, the FOIA manager, and subject matter experts.

"We're going to post records that are of both broad public interest and likely to be requested again. Not every record released through a FOIA request will make its way into the Reading Room, but I hope residents and reporters alike will see this as a good-faith effort towards greater transparency," said Mayor Danny Avula.

Additionally, to ensure that every City department knows the importance of timely, complete, and accurate responses to FOIA requests, all City Directors and Deputy Directors will now be required to take a mandatory annual FOIA training.

🌠 The More You Know

• Since the Water Crisis, 86 days ago, the City's FOIA team has responded to 61 water-related FOIA requests, with most of those requests including multiple sub-requests.
• 22 individuals have requested records.
• About 55 staff members have worked on at least some part of a water-related FOIA request.
• The City took the seven-day extension on 46 requests.
• The City has responded late, after the required deadline, five times.
• To date, across all requests, the City has charged requesters about $1,440.

🔎 All About FOIA

• State law requires the City to respond to FOIA requests within five business days—which doesn't include days the City isn't open, like weekends or holidays. If needed, the City can take a seven-business-day extension.
• Some records can be redacted or withheld (either partially or entirely). When this occurs, the City must provide a written response stating th specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows the withholding.
• The Code of Virginia specifies several reasons a record may be redacted or withheld. During the Water Crisis, the City cited those exemptions and withheld records that contained:
   
  • "information...which would jeopardize the safety or security of any person; governmental facility" (§ 2.2-3705.2),
  • "working papers and correspondence of the…mayor or chief executive officer of any political subdivision of the Commonwealth" (§ 2.2-3705.7)
  • "Written advice of legal counsel to…local public bodies or the officers or employees of such public bodies, and any other records protected by the attorney-client privilege" (§ 2.2-3705.1).
     
• The City can charge for the actual costs of responding to FOIA requests, including staff time spent searching for and reviewing the requested records.
• Costs are charged at lowest hourly rate of the staff member capable of fulfilling the request. The highly technical and sensitive nature of some records occasionally require subject matter experts, deputy directors, or even department directors to pull records.
• The City's FOIA team will regularly work with requester to narrow the scope of their requests. This saves the requester money and helps ensure efficient use of staff time and retrieval of information that accurately addresses the individual's request.