Hanover and Henrico supervisors to meet today on regional water service options

Richmond’s water treatment plant beside the James River. (Image courtesy City of Richmond)

With recent water service problems keeping the issue top of mind, the boards for Henrico and Hanover counties are meeting today to start talking about potential regional solutions, with hopes that more neighbors will join in the conversation.

In a rare joint meeting of neighboring localities’ governing bodies, Henrico and Hanover supervisors are convening to discuss potential paths forward to improve water resiliency in the region following a string of incidents that have prompted two boil water advisories in a span of five months, among other service disruptions that stemmed from Richmond’s aging water treatment plant.

The meeting follows the latest boil water advisory for parts of Richmond and Henrico that was attributed to filter failures at the plant, as well as a water main break in downtown Richmond that affected water pressure in eastern Henrico. A recent spike in fluoride levels during repairs at the plant also raised more concerns since the dayslong outage that left parts of the region without water in January.

But today’s meeting was in the works since before the latest incidents, said Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas. Vithoulkas said Tuesday that the counties had been setting up the meeting since getting back their respective after-action reports of the outage. Richmond’s initial report followed weeks later.

John Vithoulkas

“This came out of a realization that there’s a dependency that we have on each other, and so part of the agenda for (the meeting) will be to get the boards’ direction on expanding conversations regarding the resiliency of water in the region, and that would include obviously Richmond and Chesterfield,” Vithoulkas said Tuesday.

“This is basically an opportunity for two boards to have a conversation. One of the possible outcomes is that, as opposed to a two-way conversation, this becomes a four-way conversation with the city and with Chesterfield County,” he said.

John Budesky, Hanover’s county manager, said the goal of today’s meeting is twofold.

“We’re going to focus on what is it that we can do better as neighbors to build water resiliency opportunities,” Budesky said. “That may mean more connections between us, capacity, those kinds of things. The second part is more the beginning of a broader conversation: what is it that we can do regionally to support the success of the city’s plant.

John Budesky (Courtesy Hanover)

“We’re vested in their success. We have agreements with them that go through 2040; we’ve been partners with them for the past 25 years with good success, up until the incidents that have occurred this year.”

Options that could be on the table include creation of a regional water authority that would allow more involvement from the counties in plant operations and maintenance; partnerships with the city to repair or replace the aging facility; and using Henrico’s recently completed Cobbs Creek Reservoir in Cumberland County to provide for regional water needs.

The counties’ after-action reports put the blame for the January service outage on a lack of communication from city utilities officials, which prevented the county counterparts from knowing the severity of the failure. Since then, the city has put millions of dollars into upgrades at the plant and updated operating procedures.

Vithoulkas said he has been meeting with Richmond Mayor Danny Avula to discuss the different scenarios. He said today’s meeting is intended to keep the bigger conversation going in a more formal forum between regional partners.

“I have had conversations with the mayor, several of our elected officials have met with city officials, so those conversations are ongoing,” he said. “This is simply the next step to make sure that whatever we’re talking about regionally there’s a basic understanding of what that looks like, as opposed to one locality doing one thing and another doing another.”

Added Budesky: “We’ve worked with Henrico for years on many different projects, and as neighbors, we have an opportunity to look at opportunities to interconnect and support one another even more in the future as it relates to water, especially in emergencies.

“What’s it going to take us to get back to long-term sustainability with water resilience – as customers that’s important to us, but as partners that’s also important, to make sure that the city’s plant is successful, which ultimately benefits our collective residents,” he said.

The meeting is being held at 2:30 p.m. at the Henrico County Sports & Events Center. Due to space limitations where the boards will be convening, the public is encouraged to livestream the meeting via this link.

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