Boil Advisories and Budget Battles: Water Crisis Looms Over Start of 2025 Legislative Session

When Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears found herself boiling water in her Richmond apartment after Monday’s powerful winter storm had pummeled the city, she quickly realized she was dealing with more than just a temporary nuisance.

The Virginia House of Delegates on the first day of the 2025 legislative session, Jan. 8, 2025. (Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

Like thousands of residents and most of the 140 members of Virginia’s General Assembly, who had arrived in the state capital from across the commonwealth on Sunday or Monday morning for the start of the 2025 legislative session, she was caught off guard by the storm-induced water crisis that brought much of Richmond to a standstill.

“You have to boil everything and then they tell you, ‘Take a shower very quickly and don’t open your mouth.’ How do you not do that?” Earle-Sears told The Mercury during a brief interview outside the state Senate chamber Wednesday morning. “The last time I had these types of conditions, I was in the Marine Corps, and it’s awful.”

Heavy storms had knocked out key components of the city’s century-old water infrastructure, leaving thousands of residents without clean water and prompting officials to issue boil-water advisories across the region.

The crisis forced the General Assembly into an unprecedented one-day session Wednesday before voting to recess until Monday due to the lack of water and related safety concerns at the Capitol. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledged the fragility of the infrastructure in many Virginia localities and saw the disruption as a wake-up call for potential upgrades.

While an after-action report is expected to shed light on the causes of the ongoing calamity that tested the city’s new Mayor Danny Avula in his first week in office — whether due to aging systems, human error, or underfunding — the incident underscored the need for comprehensive planning to prevent similar failures in the future.

“We’ve seen tougher times, but this is a good wake-up call for all of us at how precarious these things that we take for granted can be,” House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, said when speaking to reporters outside the House chamber Wednesday afternoon. “Water and electricity remind us of the people that we serve, but they sometimes don’t have access to things that we take for granted, some basic necessities.”

Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, talks with reporters outside the House chamber at the state Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 8, 2025. (Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

The legislature met only briefly to handle procedural resolutions, including salaries and measures granting lawmakers additional time to introduce bills, before adjourning until Monday due to the ongoing water outage.

No further legislative business or committee meetings are scheduled this week, and both the Capitol and the General Assembly Building will remain closed through Sunday.

Before and after the short session, Richmond’s water crisis and its unprecedented disruption of the General Assembly’s business dominated conversations in the hallways of the state Capitol as lawmakers from both parties debated who should bear responsibility and how to prevent similar issues in the future.

Del. Alphonzo Lopez, D-Arlington, who arrived in Richmond on Monday and immediately found himself without running water, emphasized the urgency of investing in infrastructure.

“Considering the fact that we have localities in Virginia that have critical resources and infrastructure that was built in the 19th century, yes, we do have infrastructure needs around the state,” Lopez said.

“And when something like this happens, it definitely makes us understand that we have to be investing in our water infrastructure, and that we also have to be investing in our infrastructure overall, because piping systems that are antiquated like this in places like Richmond or Petersburg, they have to be addressed.”

Sen. Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, pointed to the need for immediate resources for Avula, Richmond’s new mayor.

“We want to make sure he has resources that he needs as well in his administration, because he has inherited this problem and this crisis. I think it certainly is something to look at,” Rouse said.

Republican lawmakers, however, struck a more cautious tone, emphasizing the need for accountability in how localities spend funds.

Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, pointed out that Richmond had received substantial funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. He suggested that little of that money appeared to have been allocated to water infrastructure under the previous city administration.

But McDougle expressed sympathy for Richmond’s new city leader, acknowledging the difficulty of facing such a challenge within days of taking office.

“Certainly, I feel for Mayor Avula and dealing with this situation in his first five days in office,” he said. “I know that’s a challenge, but we need to look and see where those dollars are going, whether they were spent responsibly, and if we need to take steps to make sure when a local locality gets resources, they’re putting them where it will help all people in the community. And certainly water would be one of the highest priorities.”

Porta potties in Capitol Square on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, as much of Richmond remained without water. (Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

Del. Mike Cherry, R-Colonial Heights, echoed that sentiment, saying the crisis highlights the need for a broader discussion about the state’s role in helping localities.

“I think this does lend itself to a conversation about how the state does help in this situation, what is our impact, what is our level of responsibility?” Cherry said.

“But where does Richmond hold the accountability in this as well? I think if you look at some of their funding priorities of what they had planned to spend money on in the budget this year, I think there are some places they can reallocate and look towards infrastructure changes and upgrades to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.”

Del. Terry Austin, R-Botetourt, a longtime member of the House Appropriations Committee, warned that the state should proceed with caution when considering broad infrastructure assistance to localities.

“We have to be very careful how we do that, because if we do that for one (locality), how do we say no to another?” Austin said. “And there are a lot of old water systems around the commonwealth, and I’m sure that they have multiple needs. I’m not going to say no, I’m going to say that we should tread very carefully there.”

House Speaker Scott was wary, however, about jumping to conclusions on what caused the breakdown.

“We’re not sure this is all a money problem; this could have been some human error involved as well,” he noted. “We’re going to wait for that after-action report. And if that’s the issue, that the city doesn’t have the resources to do it, like every other locality they have representation here and they’ll go through their representatives.”

At a Wednesday afternoon news conference at the Virginia Department of Emergency Management in Richmond, Gov. Glenn Youngkin reaffirmed his commitment to improving Richmond’s water infrastructure following this week’s crisis. He reiterated his proposal to allocate an additional $100 million in state funds to support upgrades to Richmond’s aging, combined sewer overflow system.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin at a news conference at the Virginia Department of Emergency Services on Jan. 8, 2004. (Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

“In the budget amendments that I submitted in advance in December, I specifically earmarked this again, as I’ve done in previous budgets. It’s a very important project,” Youngkin said.

The city faces a funding gap of roughly $1 billion to complete the $1.3 billion project aimed at modernizing its 100-year-old system, which filters stormwater and sewage through the same pipes. Although Youngkin included funding for the project in his 2023 budget proposal, the legislature ultimately removed it from the final budget agreement.

On Wednesday, Youngkin pointed out that the state has already allocated substantial resources for water treatment facilities across Virginia, signaling broader efforts to address water infrastructure challenges statewide.

“In this particular circumstance, we have discussed with city leadership, and of course our neighboring county leadership, the after-action report and an investigation that’s going to be very illuminating on what we can do together and what the city of Richmond needs to do in order to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Youngkin said.

“Everyone is frustrated, and the water supply has been on and off for everybody in the city, including Capitol Square, and the fact that the General Assembly has had to postpone our start is a reality when something like this happens.”

Earle-Sears, who is seeking the Republican nomination for governor this year, called on the legislature to approve Youngkin’s funding request during the 2025 session, which is set to resume Monday — provided water service is restored by then.

“Part of the state helping out also involves not just the governor’s office, but it’s also the legislature, all 140 senators and delegates coming together and helping to pass a budget that will give the money that the localities need at the time that they need it,” she said.

Earle-Sears added that the crisis left her with a newfound appreciation for life’s basic necessities. “We complain about so much in life that we don’t have as we’re on the way to getting what we want, and sometimes we forget how thankful we should be just to have water,” she said.

by Markus Schmidt, Virginia Mercury

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