Richmond water crises

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The root cause of the multiple failures of the Richmond water treatment plant appear to be due to the City Council's and the former mayor's failure to hire competent management and failure to fund routine critical equipment replacement and maintenance.  As your Delegate I will propose new laws requiring scheduled demonstration of critical equipment operation to inspectors of the Virginia Department of Health, Office of Drinking Water (ODW). 

The City wasted or "lost" millions of dollars when critical equipment, such as the electrical switch gear and the backup generators could have been fixed for less than one million dollars.   In a sense, a law cannot prevent bad local government.  That task is up to the voters, except Richmond is the Capital and the Commonwealth has a vested interest in having water in order to run the state government.  New laws requiring periodic testing and demonstration of critical equipment operation may be an answer.  It would force the water utilities to have equipment and staff ready to successfully demonstrate operation.  ODW would observe the test and take enforcement action if the equipment failed.   The burden of making ready the equipment and staff falls to the utility.   ODW's burden of test observation would be relatively small.

For your choice of a Delegate, remember that my opponent was on City Council for 8 years, 2016 through 2023, when the water plant needed management that knew how to manage the plant and acquire minimal funds for reliable operation.   His, most of the Council members', and the mayor's direction and priorities did not serve the city to provide the most basic need of all.  The basic need of all is clean and reliable water.