Why do some Henrico residents still get their water from Richmond?
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Last week’s water crisis in Richmond, which spilled over to Henrico since much of Eastern and Northern Henrico receive their water through the city’s system, has caused some Henrico residents to wonder why they are reliant upon the city’s water supply and not Henrico’s.
The reason dates back nearly 30 years, to Sept. 16, 1994 – a date on which Henrico and Richmond settled six years of debate about water.
It was then that Henrico County Board of Supervisors Chair Jim Donati and Richmond Mayor Leonidas Young ceremoniously signed an agreement that paved the way for Henrico to build and open its own water treatment facility – which it ultimately did a decade later – but also required the county to continue purchasing, at minimum, an average of about 12 million gallons of water per day from the city until July 1, 2040. (Young and Henrico County Manager Virgil Hazelett signed the formal agreement, linked below, 13 days later.)
At the time of the agreement, about 10% of the water used in Henrico came from wells, while the rest came from the city’s water treatment plant, which had been operational for more than 100 years. The city had been preparing a massive $60-million upgrade to its facility, which it intended to pay for in part through the continued sale of water to Henrico – at the time its largest customer. It also was readying plans for a revitalization of its canal through riverfront development plans.
Simultaneously, Hazelett and other Henrico officials had been weighing the possibility of breaking free (at least in part) from the city's water supply and building their own treatment plant.
Tom Lappas, Citizen Publisher
They wanted to ensure that the county – entering a period of what would become significant commercial and residential development – could meet the future water needs of its growing citizenry and business base. Hazelett had concerns about the age and location of the landlocked Richmond plant and worried that some unexpected event could knock it offline (as had happened when Hurricane Agnes rolled through the region in 1972).
As the leader of a growing suburban locality, he didn't want to take that chance, and neither did other county officials.
"It could have a fire, explosion. There's any number of things that can happen at a facility," then-Henrico Public Utilities Director Patrick Brady told the Richmond Times-Dispatch prior to the agreement in April 1993. "And if it's the only facility, then more and more people are at risk of being without water if they have a problem."
County officials also were perturbed that the city had raised the cost of water by 175% during a four-year period in the 1980s, which perhaps heightened their interest in finding a way forward on their own.
City officials argued that Richmond had the right to pull 417 million gallons of water per day from the James (thanks to agreements dating back to 1880 with companies that had legal title to the river, according to the Times-Dispatch) and that if Henrico began pulling water west of downtown, it could weaken the flow of the river as it approached the city and threaten Richmond's future riverfront development. They also worried that the city would be less able to pay for the renovation of its water treatment facility if its top-paying customer jumped ship – a move they said would stick Richmond customers with a 30% cost increase.
Besides, city officials insisted, the renovation to the Richmond's facility would allow it to produce as much as 132 million gallons of water per day – more than enough for the city, Henrico and any other interested regional users for at least two decades.
Issue led to regional tension
For several years, officials from both localities went back and forth, both publicly and privately, debating whether the county needed its own facility, whether it had the right to take water from the river, and whether the construction of a facility in the county would negatively impact the city.
The topic became a dominant one regionally and caused the localities to exchange cold shoulders. Because of the disagreement, for example, Henrico officials skipped a regional meeting in March 1993 in Charlottesville that was attended by Richmond, Chesterfield and Hanover officials. County officials at various points threatened a lawsuit to protect their ability to build their water plant.
The Metropolitan Richmond Chamber of Commerce became involved as a mediator shortly thereafter, engaging both localities in an attempt to avoid legal disputes and appointing two committees of local business officials to study the issue and make a recommendation. The Chamber proposed a regional water authority and in the fall of 1993 concluded that Henrico should build its own treatment facility and open it between 2002 and 2023, depending upon which of the Chamber’s four long-term alternative plans the two localities agreed upon.
By that time, the county already had spent $14.6 million to buy the site for its plant near Three Chopt and Gaskins roads, conduct studies to prepare for its construction and purchase some of the pipes it would need to transport water from the river to the facility. The county also had received a permit from the Virginia Department of Health for its construction, but approval of a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – which held the authority to approve or deny the county’s request to pull water from the James for its facility – still was several years away.
Some of those county costs had been funded by annual 5% increases to the county’s water rates, which began in 1990 and would continue for several more years. Raising the rates gradually also would ease the higher costs needed to help pay down the debt on the bonds that ultimately would be sold to fund construction of the water treatment plant, officials said at the time.
Agreement brought relief, cooperation
When the two sides finally reached a tentative agreement in May 1994, there was relief from all sides.
"It's one of the most positive things that's happened in Richmond in a good long while," retired Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Robert P. Black told the Richmond Times-Dispatch at the time. Black had chaired one of the two Chamber committees tasked with reviewing the issue. "I don't think there are any losers. I think we're all winners."
Both sides – and others regionally, including corporate leaders – viewed the compromise as an important indicator that regional cooperation was growing in tangible ways.
"Unlocking this water puzzle will help us disassemble the territorialism and parochialism that pervades this area,"John V. Moeser, chairman of the department of urban studies and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch in May 1994.
The final agreement established some key points:
• the city would endorse Henrico’s construction of a water treatment plant to the Corps of Engineers and other regulatory agencies in exchange for the county’s endorsement of Richmond’s waterfront development plans to the Corps and other agencies;
• the city would convey 80 million gallons per day of its own water rights in the James River to Henrico;
• the county would not open its new facility (other than for testing purposes) before Jan. 1, 2003;
• the county would purchase an average of at least 35 million gallons of water per day from Richmond through 2006 and then at least an average of nearly 12 million gallons daily through July 1, 2040;
• in order to terminate the agreement after that date, either side would have to provide written notice of that intent five years in advance (by July 2, 2035 in order to terminate it by July 2, 2040, for example);
• the county could continue selling water it purchased from the city to Goochland and Hanover counties, as it had been doing, and to other customers with the written permission of the city;
• once Henrico’s water treatment plant opened, the county would begin reimbursing the city for 50% of the annual operating and maintenance expenses incurred by Richmond in the operation and maintenance of Bosher’s Dam;
• termination of the contract by Henrico at any point would require it to reimburse Richmond for the cost (minus depreciation) of facilities the city had built to serve the county’s water customers, which at the time of the contract’s signing totaled about $34.6 million.
