Hanover County, Va. (Newsradiowrva.com) - Hanover leaders on Wednesday reviewed findings from a third-party assessment into actions taken by the county following January’s water crisis.
The county-wide water outage stemmed from a failure at Richmond’s water treatment facility. Ultimately, Hanover residents were left without water for an entire day and placed under a boil water advisory for four days.
The report emphasized that faster and more direct communication would have mitigated the impact of the crisis.
The report – conducted by Dewberry Engineers and WaterPIO – found that Hanover officials were left in the dark about the issues for more than seven hours. The report states that Richmond’s initial response and the absence of direct communication with Hanover County Public Utilities impacted Hanover’s ability to respond effectively.
Dewberry made short and long-term recommendations to improve system resilience. Short-term recommendations include evaluating and improving connections with Henrico County for supplemental water supply during emergencies. Long-term, the report suggests a study to evaluate additional water sources and transmission improvements.
The Hanover Board of Supervisors said they plan to engage with localities to establish a regional water authority board to enhance communication and explore further collaboration with Henrico on future water expansion initiatives.