


Richmond Department of Public Utilities Director April Bingham resigned a week after water outages paralyzed Virginia‘s capital city.
The water outages began last week when a winter storm battered the Old Dominion and there was a power outage at the city’s water treatment plant. The crisis ended when the boil advisories for the area were lifted on Saturday. The incident is under investigation by the state, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) said.
On Wednesday, Bingham resigned and Anthony “Scott” Morris was appointed as the interim director of the department, saying he was “excited” to return to the department to lead it.
“As someone with a history of working in local and state water service roles, including a previous tenure with the City of Richmond as a wastewater plant chief operator, I am excited to return to Richmond to lead the Department of Public Utilities,” Morris said in a statement.
“As the City continues to recover from the recent water service outage at the plant, I look forward to working with the team to support the delivery of essential utility services to Richmonders,” Morris added.
The city said on Tuesday that the water treatment plants were now pumping 68 million gallons of water daily, which they claim is above the average water consumption for this part of the year.
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The crisis caused this year’s legislative session to be delayed, with leaders starting the session on Monday rather than the originally planned Jan. 8 start date.
“We are gathering here a few days later than normal after the difficult and frustrating water crisis in Richmond last week. Thank you to everyone who stepped up to serve neighbors, communities, and our capital city,” Youngkin said at his State of the Commonwealth address in Richmond on Monday.