Water Incident Independent Review Committee
Water Incident Independent Review Committee
Background
A series of events associated with sub-freezing temperatures in December 2022 led to water outages in the southern and western portions of Asheville’s water system for an extended period
of time disrupting the lives of our residential, institutional, and business customers.
In light of this, Asheville City Council has created an Independent Review Committee (IRC) to review and provide a comprehensive account of the water outage, an assessment of the operational and emergency response and communication efforts, and needed infrastructure and procedural enhancements.
The committee presented its report to City Council on June 13, 2023.
Following the presentation staff thoroughly review the IRC report and recommendations. Taking those recommendations into consideration, staff conducted research and gathered relevant information. The response to each recommendation can be found in this response matrix document.
As the project continues forward staff will continue to provide both City Council and the commmunity with updates on implementing the IRC Recommendations.
Happening Now
On December 7, 2023 staff provided an update to City Council at their agenda briefing worksession
December Update - Matrix Document
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Staff provided an October update on the process of the recommendations.
Some highlights are:
- Finalization of the Emergency Operations Plan and Continuity of Operations Plan and Excercising them.
- The onboarding of the Water Public Information Officer is underway.
- Water staff is finalizing the scope of for the Preliminary Engineering Report and wil post a Request for Qualifcations in the coming weeks.
October Update - Matrix Document
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The IRC Report included an overview of the water outage incident, an overview of the water production and distrubution system, a hydraulic modeling report and a total of 37 recommendations
- 10 - Water System/Operations
- 11- Communication
- 16 - Emergency Response
Staff has created a matrix document with the city response to each of the recommendations including timelines.
Committee Members:
| Name | Role |
| John McLaughlin | Water Subject Matter Expert |
| Ted Tyree | Water Subject Matter Expert |
| Michael Holcombe | Water Subject Matter Expert |
| Mike McGill | Communication Subject Matter Expert |
| Rob Brisley | Communication Subject Matter Expert |
| Dennis Fagnant | Emergency Management Subject Matter Expert |
| Michele Ashley | Residential Water Customer |
| Kim "Dirt" Murphy | Residential Water Customer |
| Carolyn Roy | Business Water Customer |
At the January 10th meeting Asheville City Council voted to create a multidisciplinary team to review the water outage. The kickoff meeting for the committee took place on February 20, 2023. The goals of this meeting were to 1) introduce members 2) develop a shared understanding of the timeline, outcomes, and impact of the water outage 3) create subcommittees 4) develop a meeting schedule and action items.
The following subcommittees were created:
Water System
Treatment Operations
Transmission and distribution
Emergency Response
Communications
Internal
External
Subcommittees are meeting, conducting interviews and analyzing information to develop an understanding of the events and to make recommendations for improvements in the specifically identified areas.
| Date | Event |
| January 10 | City Council Vote to create independent review comittee |
| February 20 | Comittee Kickoff Meeting |
| February - May | Comittee and subcomittee meeting scheduled as required to complete the review |
| March 1 | Roles and Responsibilities Meeting |
| March 21 | Committee Check in Meeting |
| March 28 | Update to City Council |
| April 25 | Update to City Council |
| May 1 | Committee Check in Meeting |
| May 15 | Committee Check in Meeting |
| June 1 | Committee Check in Meeting |
| June 13 | Final report to City Council |
| Aug 22 | City Council Work Sessions - Response to Recommendations |
Updated: 10/30/23