Poor communication, a lack of preparation and decades of deferred maintenance projects worsened a crisis that began with an outage at Richmond’s water treatment plant and left residents without running water for days last month, according to a new report released Monday.

“The above concerns … all contributed to the escalation of the event,” the report by engineering firm HNTB states. “These factors revealed several concerns and opportunities for improvement regarding the WTP to mitigate the risk of a similar event occurring again.”

The report follows a preliminary version released weeks earlier and precedes the final version. It expands or revises previously presented information, including a correction to the outage timeline. The updated report notes a Virginia Department of Health representative entered the plant to inspect it and assist staff at 6:50 p.m. on Jan. 6, rather than at 12:30 p.m. as originally stated. 

New Department of Public Utilities Director Scott Morris attributed these changes to the “cursory” nature of how the first timeline was made, during a virtual press conference Monday afternoon with Mayor Danny Avula and HNTB Vice President Robert Page.

Communication breakdowns also affected VDH, which first learned about the outage hours after it occurred. A representative arrived at the plant at 5:30 p.m. that day but left after being unable to enter or contact staff.

The draft report also stated Richmond “did not adequately convey the severity of the situation” to Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover counties when the outage occurred, and quicker communication would have allowed them to better prepare.

Avula continued to defend Richmond’s regional communication despite the report’s findings, which align with the conclusions of independent reports commissioned by Henrico and Hanover officials on the outage.

“What I’m looking at shows that there was a good-faith attempt to say, ‘Hey, we’re down, we’re working on it,’” Avula said. “I don’t know how else to comment outside of that.”

The report also highlighted a lack of preparation. Plant leadership took “little proactive action” ahead of the winter storm that caused the outage, even after state and local emergency declarations.

Additionally, HNTB found projects in the plant’s Water Master Plan “that were slated for implementation from 2001 to 2007,” but have only recently been carried out or are now in progress.

As a result, HNTB said there could be “substantial amounts of deferred replacement” for plant equipment, particularly since DPU didn’t have an “asset management plan” in place.

Minutes after the press conference, City Council’s Organizational Development Standing Committee raised further questions about preventing future outages and addressing community concerns while discussing the report with Page and Morris.

“What do we need right now? Because right now, we’re getting ready to go into the budget,” Reva Trammell, 8th District, said. “So we need to know, because this is the most important thing right now that should be on all of our minds.”

The final report will be released Thursday, April 3, followed by a presentation to the committee Monday, April 7.