After Richmond crisis, water infrastructure a General Assembly focus

In Richmond, when the water system failed after Monday’s winter storm cut power to the water treatment plant, the clean water in the city’s 148-year-old reservoir quickly ran low. There wasn’t enough pressure in the Department of Public Utilities’ pipes to deliver water to homes, businesses — and the Capitol.

That focused legislators’ attention.

“It reminds us how blessed we are, how grateful we should be, but how much work we need to do to make sure every Virginia has the opportunity to have clean water, access to water, access to utilities and home and shelter that’s safe. So that’s very eye-opening,” said House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth.

The issue has been around for a while.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that Virginia’s drinking water systems need an additional $9.4 billion of investment.

Among the issues engineers have said need to be addressed are backup power sources, better protection of facilities from the impact of bad weather and how water utilities respond to emergencies.

As for Richmond specifically: “We’re going to wait for the after-action report, and if that’s the issue — that the city doesn’t have the resources to do it — obviously, like every locality, they’ll have representation here, and they’ll go through their representatives,” Scott said.

Del. Alfonso Lopez, D-Arlington, chair of the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee, said he hopes the Richmond water crisis, and its impact on legislators, will bring action on water issues.

“We need to be sure we have the infrastructure, we need to be sure it is funded,” he said.

“The reservoir in Richmond was built in 1876, and there is aging infrastructure across the commonwealth that’s really in need of work,” Lopez said.

“I think it will elevate the issue. Everybody in Virginia needs access to clean, safe drinking water,” said Del. Kathy Tran, D-Fairfax, who has pushed legislation to ban material with high concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, a carcinogen which can contaminate groundwater.

In a post on X shortly before Wednesday’s abbreviated start of the 2025 session, state Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, wrote:

“Having no access to running water here puts the crisis in areas like Flint, MI in context for me. We take so much for granted. Investing in and protecting essential infrastructure like clean water should be front and center policy initiatives.”

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, said he expects a lot of attention on water this year.

He has been worried about Virginia water issues for years, including the presence of forever chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — more commonly known as PFAS — in drinking water. These chemicals have been linked to cancers of the prostate kidney and testes, as well as to low birth rate and accelerated puberty in children, decreased reproductive fertility and reduced immune system response to infection.

Surovell’s home gets its water from the only private water company operating in Fairfax County — the one his grandparents organized in the 1940s. It draws water from the northern end of the giant Potomac aquifer, where the rapidly depleting groundwater source is thinnest.

Even before the Richmond water crisis highlighted water supply concerns for fellow legislators — the General Assembly is in a recess until Monday when clean water should be flowing again through the pipes of the Capitol and General Assembly Building — Surovell was planning a bill to address infrastructure concerns.

His proposal would allow private water firms, which have access to capital outside the reach of many cities and towns, to buy and operate aging municipal systems. Privatized water systems’ rates are subject to State Corporation Commission review, to ensure they are fair to customers. Municipal system rates are not.

The aquifer is thicker in state Sen. Richard Stuart’s home county, King George, and the rest of the Republican legislator’s district which includes the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula, but its continuing depletion has been a focus of much of his legislation in recent years.

“We just don’t have enough water,” he said. “DEQ [the Department of Environmental Quality] needs more tools so that we’re planning how we use water better. … The Constitution of Virginia says our natural resources are for the benefit and welfare of Virginians, and we need to be sure people get the water first.”

Legislation he sponsored last year directed the State Water Control Board to keep permits for wells for residential wells active past their formal expiration if they are within 5 miles of an industrial or commercial user in the thinnest parts of the aquifer in Northern Virginia.

Those residential wells can now keep drawing water until commercial and industrial withdrawals have been halted for five years. Another bill told DEQ to look at water levels, flow rates and water quality in rivers, streams and groundwater aquifers when it issues permits for groundwater or surface water withdrawals.

“We’re drawing too much from rivers, and salinity is moving upstream,” he said, saying that when fresh water from upstream is diverted into a water system, as Richmond does from the James River, it reduces the flow that in effect pushes away salt water from Chesapeake Bay.

“It’s a statewide issue and we need to think statewide,” he said.

But Scott, the House speaker, said he doesn’t think the answer to water issues is something that could limit local government’s decision-making powers, like the measures legislators have introduced about siting solar facilities or zoning for affordable housing.

The tight limits on solar farms that some localities have written into their zoning regulations, and a growing pattern of zoning denials, have led the legislature’s Commission on Electric Utility Regulation to bring forward a measure that would set up a state board to review proposals and recommend local government action.

Del. Shelly Simonds, D-Newport News, has a bill that would require localities’ zoning ordinances allow accessory dwelling units, or ADUs — often called granny flats or mother-in-law suites — in areas set for single-family residences.

State Sen. Schulyer VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, wants the state to set a target for localities to expand their housing stock.

Scott doesn’t think the General Assembly needs to tell cities and town how to run their water utilities.

“I think we have to continue to allow localities to have local control. … They have answers to those problems. I don’t think we should be coming in [like] Bigfoot on local government,” he said.

“We should be providing technical expertise and assistance and some guardrails, but never for some localities to do the things that the communities don’t want,” he added.

What the state can do is help financially, through the budget, he said.

Richmond Mayor Danny Avula said Scott has reached out to him several times and that he and Gov. Glenn Youngkin had been in regular contact throughout the crisis.

“We already had engagement over the last few years with the legislature about investing in the aging infrastructure in our city. There have been some significant commitments that have been made,” Avula said Thursday, citing state funding for Richmond’s multi-hundred-million-dollar effort to end overflows of sewage from the aging sewer pipes that carry both rainwater and sewage through much of the city.

“The issue is well understood — and I think this particular crisis brings it to the forefront,” Avula said. “I think there’s a real opportunity to reengage the conversation.”

Youngkin noted Wednesday that his proposed budget amendments include an additional $50 million for Richmond’s combined sewer overflow project, and he said the state has allocated substantial funding for water treatment plants around Virginia. He said the after-action report on the Richmond water crisis will be important to see what needs to happen next.

Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, said the legislature probably does need to take a hard look at Virginia’s water infrastructure.

“It is a local issue, local governments are responsible,” McDougle said. “But the state can help.”