Low water pressure reported in parts of Richmond; city says overnight issue is solved
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Richmonder Staff
Original story:
Residents living in and near The Fan reported reduced water pressure on Tuesday morning, as Richmond returned to work after a holiday weekend.
"Due to high turbidity in the system, some of the plant’s filters clogged, temporarily reducing finished water production," according to a city spokesperson.
"Despite the reduction, the plant continued to produce enough water to maintain safe system pressure levels — above the threshold that would have required a boil water advisory."
Mayor Danny Avula released a statement on Tuesday morning.
“This incident showed that our emergency response standard operating procedures worked as planned," he wrote. "We communicated in a timely manner with our regional and state partners and recovered production quickly. That said, there’s still work to be done, and I’ll take a hard look at what happened and identify any future improvements needed.”
Water issues have dominated Avula's first five months in office, as the entire system went offline in January, leaving most residents without usable water for five days.
More recently, an error briefly caused an excess of fluoride to enter the water system, though testing did not show unsafe levels at any point.
Late last week, the city announced new leadership at the plant and within the Department of Public Utilities broadly.
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