Richmond DPU director provides water crisis update, addresses billing concerns

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Richmond residents gathered Thursday night at Lois Harrison-Jones Elementary School to hear from Scott Morris, the city’s new Department of Public Utilities (DPU) director, about the January water crisis that left the city without clean water for nearly a week.

"I definitely have some empathy for someone coming in as a new director," said Michelle Kleinau, a resident of Richmond’s 5th District. "I'm coming out of it feeling positive, although definitely still a little skeptical."

Kleinau and many other Richmonders voiced frustration over water bills after the crisis.

"My bill from January was higher than normal, which I don't really know how that happens when you don't have water for a week," Kleinau said.

8News asked Morris directly if high water bills were happening for any specific reason.

"There's no reason that somebody would have an unusually high water bill," Morris said. "If they are experiencing an unusually high water bill, I advise anybody to contact the customer service."

All residents who had this concern were given Morris' direct contact.

"Unfortunately, with billing and customer service issues, I didn't hear much of a plan," Kleinau said. "It's great that I have someone to reach out to solve my issue. But really, I'd like to see issues fixed for everyone."

Looking ahead, Morris laid out a five-year, short-term plan that includes upgrading training procedures and conducting annual training sessions, a practice state inspectors previously found to be severely lacking. He also addressed the key reasons that caused the crisis.

"One [issue] was a winter mode operation instead of a summer mode operation," Morris said. "Inherently, summer mode is more reliable. So moving forward, we're always going to be using summer mode."

Morris also said the UPS, which is an un-interrupted power source, partially caused water to shut off, as it's connected to the SCADA system – or the technological "brain of the plant."

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"We're in the process of replacing a couple of the actuators now," Morris said. "Once we get through that entirety of those replacements, we're going to do a couple of cycles to make sure that those UPS work, make sure the programming works."

Morris said the city had $5 million to cover these short-term plans. The most important long-term plan Morris highlighted was implementing a backup generator, which Richmond previously did not have.