Records show 2023 chemical incident at water treatment plant raised staffing concerns

In response to questions, city spokesperson Ross Catrow told The Times-Dispatch that the incident occurred when “chemicals were offloaded into the wrong chemical storage tank.”

“Crews realized the error before they used the chemical, and drained the tank,” Catrow said. “Drinking water was not impacted.”

The revelation comes less than a month after a Jan. 6 power outage at the plant took the system offline, leaving residents without drinkable water for six days.

‘We did not follow procedure’

In an email sent on the evening of Aug. 27, 2023, William Wright, a utility operator for Richmond’s Department of Public Utilities, wrote that he had received a call at around 11 a.m. from a plant employee who told him that “he had a major problem and operations made a mistake.”

The nature of the chemicals and the process by which they were placed in the wrong holding tank is not clear. The remainder of Wright’s email is heavily redacted, and officials did not offer those details in response to questions.

In a reply sent the day after the incident, DPU Deputy Director Eric Whitehurst said multiple “environmental contractors” had “responded ... to pump out the contaminated chemicals from the tank.” That effort involved a hazmat crew and qualified inspectors, according to Whitehurst’s email.

“No adverse effect to the tank occurred,” he said.

In a scathing assessment of the incident, Whitehurst attributed the events to “a lack of communication and accountability within our department.”

“This was 100% operator error,” Whitehurst wrote in his Aug. 28, 2023, email. “We need to follow the procedure we have in place ... although this may have been an oversight/mistake, it does not alleviate the operator from being held accountable.”

Wright’s email echoed that analysis.

“Today’s event was a lack of effort on the operations shift/staff to do the right thing,” Wright wrote to his superiors in DPU. He then expressed doubt that more training could correct the issue, noting that the department establishes clear standard operating procedures and that the facility had three Class 1 waterworks operators onsite — the highest status under state code — but the incident “still happened.”

“Operations had a failure today that was 100% preventable,” Wright said. “We did not follow procedure. We did not care to follow procedure.”

“What can I do to improve the situation?” Wright continued. “I am not sure how much training and retraining can be done to prevent another mix-up from happening.”

Wright closed his message by taking responsibility for the failure, saying that “calling it a mistake is a cheap way of trying to get out of trouble.”

“Are we really holding our direct reports responsible for conducting their duties the proper way?” Wright asked. “The answer today is no.”

Whitehurst and Doug Towne, then the plant’s superintendent, strongly recommended disciplinary action against the supervisor and operator on duty at the time. Whether that disciplinary action was taken — and whether the involved individuals still work for DPU — is not clear. Officials did not respond to requests for comment regarding the employees’ status.

Twelve days after the events, in a Sept. 8, 2023, email, Whitehurst indicated that at least part of the issue still had not been resolved.

“Until operations ... (are) back to normal, please provide timely status updates,” he wrote to Towne.

It is not clear when the situation was fully addressed.

Both incidents deemed ‘preventable’ by officials

Officials’ evaluation of the root causes of the August 2023 incident contains striking similarities to their evaluations of the Richmond water crisis.

The Jan. 6 blackout at the plant left valves open and caused catastrophic flooding in the facility. In a notice of alleged violation issued Jan. 23 by the Virginia Department of Health, state regulators noted that plant staff either lacked the necessary knowledge to manually switch to backup power and close the valves, or else simply did not execute standard operating procedures.

And VDH officials used exactly the same word to describe the water crisis as city officials used to describe the chemical incident: preventable.

“The water crisis never should have happened,” the VDH report said. “The city ... could have prevented this crisis ... by ensuring sufficient staffing was physically present in the event of a power outage, and making sure staff present ... had appropriate training to effectively respond.”

In a Thursday appearance before the city’s Public Utilities and Services Commission, which provides oversight of DPU, Whitehurst was asked how often the city is required to update its emergency response procedures.

Whitehurst said officials must review the plans every five years. But follow-up questions were cut off by Emily Messer, an assistant city attorney, who told the commission members that Whitehurst had agreed to meet “as a courtesy.”

Officials were not able to answer questions asked on Thursday regarding what, if any, training and preparation measures had been enacted as a result of the August 2023 chemical incident.

Officials thought generators were on

Texts exchanged between officials on Jan. 6, obtained by The Times-Dispatch, show confusion surrounding the meltdown at the plant.

Among the most significant misunderstandings: Towne texted his colleagues that the “generators are on.”

But they weren’t, Mayor Danny Avula later said during a news conference. The generators were never even plugged in.

Towne may have been confusing the generators with the plant’s backup battery system. Both are redundancies that exist to run the plant when the power fails.

While the generators were never used, the backup battery did kick on. But it lasted only for 45 minutes, officials have said — not long enough to get the facility through the entirety of the outage.

Then-DPU Director April Bingham, who on Jan. 15 resigned from her post, texted Towne back: “please do not post to anything yet.” Officials did not publicly acknowledge the crisis until 4:26 p.m., roughly nine hours after it began.

Bingham then asked if the outage was caused by Dominion Energy, which powers the plant.

“Appears to be ... switchgear related,” Towne responded. Officials have said the plant’s 25-year-old switchgear malfunctioned, preventing the plant from shifting to its secondary power feed. The switchgear is maintained by the city.

“So Dominion related?” Bingham texted back, to which Towne said “that’s where it originated.”

“Thanks,” Bingham wrote.