The city issued a boil water advisory on May 27 due to low water pressure, which occurred on the heels of the January water crisis and fluoride exceedance in April.

At the time, Richmond's Department of Public Utilities Director Scott Morris swiftly announced a cause: Delayed maintenance in cleaning equipment critical to the filtration process and high turbidity in the source water, the James River, led to clogged filters.

But DPU did not directly attribute another key issue as a possible factor: an inadequate pre-treatment process.

In our view, it was both things. There was a maintenance aspect to this, and then there was also an operational aspect, that if they had some better operational processes, in addition to some improved maintenance, that we could have avoided that event," said

See Full Page