This article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
Richmond’s water treatment plant failed on Jan. 6. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Thanks to the rollback of federal grants and services, Richmond has lost a previously announced $12 million Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to improve the city’s beleaguered water treatment plant.
If nothing changes, the city will pass the costs down to the 67,000 homes and businesses it serves throughout the region, causing monthly bills to go up $8 on average.
The capital project was announced two years before the city’s water crisis in January. Rhonda Johnson, spokesperson for the city’s Department of Public Utilities, says the first phase of the project will begin this fall with the dredging and cleaning of a channel at the plant.
The city's current five-year capital budget allocates $60 million for improvements to the water treatment plant. Officials say $5 million has already been spent on immediate repairs and actions since January.
“The project will be funded through the regular [Capital Improvement Plan] budget process,” Johnson says. “The grant would have helped offset any future rate increase, which is based on a holistic look at all CIP projects to include prioritizations and schedules.”
Even if the repairs outlined in the grant announcement were completed, it's likely that the water outage may still have happened. Multiple after-action reports commissioned by both the city and the Virginia Department of Health said the crisis was avoidable and pinned responsibility on a lack of emergency planning, poor communication and lack of maintenance on backup power systems.
The problems would continue as a filtration blockage forced another boil water advisory for many Richmonders in May.
