City Council Meeting   5/16/2025

I'll call this special meeting to order.

Roll call, please.

Council Member Alsadun is absent.

Aye.

Council Member Robinson.

Here.

Interim Chief Pollard.

Here.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council members.

Thank you for your availability and your time this afternoon on this special meeting that is being called because of the continuing challenges we are facing in treating our raw water supply and our water treatment plant.

As you know, we've had heavy rains over the last several days in Harrisonburg and the surrounding areas.

And we've had, as a result, it's resulted in high turbidity in our raw water supply at Dry River and at North River.

And turbidity refers to amounts of particles and sediment

Materials like silk clay, organics, inorganics, materials that are present in our water and these particles need to be removed from the raw water as part of our treatment plant in order to make it safe for our customers.

The chemical water treatment plant techniques that we, this treating turbidity is not something that's uncommon to us.

We're familiar with that, but the chemical treatment processes that are typical to us that were commonly used to eliminate these high turbidities have been less than effective on many of the batches that we've received into the water treatment plant since the morning of May 14th.

To retain our safe drinking water status, we've had to either interrupt or reduce the output from the water treatment plant beginning May 15th.

It continues to be unresponsive to the treatment to the level that we would prefer to be and reach.

And therefore it continues to limit our ability to put water out of the treatment facility.

As of the morning of May 16th, the city's water supply, the city's supply of water and storage in the city has been greatly reduced.

Many steps to mitigate those efforts over the last few days.

Historically, we would expect this source to return to a treatable status in short order.

However, in the event that it does not because of our reduced storage, we're taking some extra precautionary actions until we can recover.

Madam Mayor to that end city staff has prepared a resolution at this point in consultation with our coordinator of emergency management who is our fire chief

and our Office of Emergency Management with Mr. Helmuth, I would like to propose a resolution that would move the city into a declaration of local emergency.

And to this end, to be clear, this simply opens up additional resources and reduces public procurement requirements if necessary.

We don't feel that these measures are necessary at this time.

We are not changing our messaging to our residents.

We are still in mandatory water restrictions.

but this simply takes an action so that we can have access to additional resources if the time and situation calls for it.

So to that end, city staff has prepared the following resolution.

A resolution consenting to the declaration by the Harrisonburg city manager of a local emergency due to recent and potential severe weather effects on the Harrisonburg water treatment plant.

Whereas, Virginia code 44-146.21 provides that a local director of emergency management

may declare the existence of a local emergency with the consent of the local governing body in accordance with the provisions of such code section and whereas heavy rains over the last several days in Harrisonburg and the surrounding area have resulted in high turbidity in the city's raw water supply.

Turbidity refers to the amount of particles or sediment-like materials such as silt, clay, and other inorganic or organic material present in the water.

Such particles must be removed from the raw water at the city's water treatment plant before the water is safe to consume or use.

Removal is also necessary to prevent blockage of the filtration system with debris.

The chemical water treatment techniques commonly utilized to eliminate high turbidity have been ineffective on many batches of water entering the water treatment plant since the morning of May 14.

This triggered a complete plant shutdown and no production of new potable water for 24 hours and a need to rely on the city's potable water storage and Rockingham County's potable water.

Water production at the water treatment plant was partially restored beginning May 15 by using different treatment techniques.

However, the turbidity's continued lack of responsiveness to traditional chemical treatment techniques limits the ability to fully restore production.

As of the morning of May 16, the city's water supply in storage is greatly diminished and Rockingham County can no longer assist the city with supplying potable water to city customers.

Additional high turbidity water could enter our system due to the prediction of more heavy rain over the next several days.

And whereas the Harrisonburg Public Utilities staff at the Water Treatment Plan has been working

exceptionally and non-stop to address and mitigate the effects of the high turbidity on the operation of the water treatment plant and will continue such efforts as long as necessary.

And whereas the city is producing a diminished potable water supply due to the reduction in the functionality of the water treatment plant caused by the high water turbidity.

This reduced functionality may continue for several days given the anticipated additional rain.

and whereas on May 14, 2025, the city issued a mandatory water conservation order in order to reduce the strain on the city's potable water supply until the water treatment plant returns to normal functionality.

and whereas the Harrisonburg city manager in his capacity as the city's director of emergency management has determined it is in the best interests of the city and its residents to declare a local emergency and has requested council's consent to such declaration and whereas the Harrisonburg city council finds one that the reduced functionality of the water treatment plant resulting in

from the extraordinarily high water turbidity caused by the recent and potential severe weather events constitutes a local emergency as defined by Virginia Code Section 44-146.16 in that it significantly reduces the potable water supply in the city's water system thereby requiring mandatory water conservation and could escalate if the situation worsens to the need for city water customers to boil water before consumption.

and two, that such reduced functionality has caused and will continue to cause damage, loss, hardship or suffering to the citizens of Harrisonburg and three, coordinated local government action is warranted to prevent or alleviate such damage, loss, hardship or suffering and now therefore be it resolved by the Harrisonburg City Council

that pursuant to Virginia Code 44-146.21, City Council hereby consents to the declaration of a local emergency as determined and requested by the City Manager in his capacity as the City's Director of Emergency Management on this day.

It is further proclaimed and ordered, one, that the City Manager's May 16, 2025 declaration

of a local emergency and the city's comprehensive emergency management plan shall remain in effect until ended by council.

Two, during the existence of said local emergency, the powers, functions, and duties of the city manager and the city council shall be those prescribed by state law and the ordinances, resolutions, regulations, and approved plans of the city of Harrisonburg in order to mitigate the effects of said local emergency.

and three, City Council calls upon the federal and state governments to take steps to afford to the City of Harrisonburg and to the persons and business concerns and other organizations and agencies suffering injury and damage from this local emergency.

Thank you.

I'll move to adopt the resolution as read and presented by the city manager.

Second.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

I appreciate the work the staff have been doing.

I'd also like to thank the public for the conservation measures that you are doing in accordance with the mandatory conservation measures we've requested.

To reiterate, the water is safe to drink, it's just the more we can conserve the more readily we can bring the whole water treatment system back online.

I'd like to also state that like kind of tying these two together in order for us to get where we need to be it's important that the citizens and our staff continue to do what's necessary for us to get over this hump so please if you think this isn't a necessary step I just beg you to follow the guidelines put forth today and really just try to meet us halfway in helping to get over this

Local emergency.

Any more discussion?

Thank you.

I see tired eyes.

Yes.

And I know it's been a hard couple of days, so this is why, you know, we support our staff and we support you.

So we hope that you, you know, that we appreciate the work that you do.

This is not easy.

And you as well, you're in it with them.

We had our briefing yesterday and I can see I'm looking at you.

And I know you haven't gotten much sleep.

But we do appreciate the work that you do.

And again, we can't say it enough that the water is safe to use.

We just need you to conserve it for right now.

So I don't want to get any mixed messages out there.

But this is something that we have to do.

We're being proactive and that's what we need.

It's our job to do.

As the city is to be proactive, not reactive, and that's what we're doing.

So seeing that, we'll take a roll call, please.

Councilmember Robinson?

Aye.

Councilmember Dent?

Aye.

Anything else?

No, ma'am.

All right.

All right.

Thank you, Council, for coming in.

And let's follow those guidelines.