The Virginian-Pilot
©
VIRGINIA BEACH
The city's drinking water is safe, Virginia Beach officials assured residents Tuesday, but an inspections program aimed at protecting the public water supply will be revamped.
In a memo to City Council, City Auditor Lyndon Remias indicated that it's unclear whether city inspectors have been checking on devices called backflow preventers. The device ensures that contaminated water is kept away from the city's water supply. Businesses such as hospitals or laboratories and some residential wells are required to use the devices. There are about 5,000 in Virginia Beach, and state law requires cities to inspect them every year.
"Permits and inspections could not provide us with any supporting documentation to indicate that the inspections were performed," Remias wrote. The council learned about the investigation's findings Friday, and Remias' memo was released Tuesday.
The inspections staff also provided "inaccurate and unreliable information" to other city officials about their work, the audit found.
"We made a mistake," Mayor Will Sessoms said. "We're fixing it."
The city is transferring the backflow inspections program from the Planning Department to Public Utilities, which handles water issues and pays for the inspector positions.
Cheri Hainer, the city's building codes administrator, said the problem was shoddy paperwork and not a lack of inspections. Hainer's office initially asked for the audit after hearing concerns last summer about how many inspections were being conducted. An inspection might have been done, but the staff wasn't putting it into the database, Hainer said. The paperwork sent from a business verifying that a plumber had checked its backflow preventer could not be found, Hainer said.
"Some of the paperwork has kind of disappeared," Hainer said.
The city is reviewing 165 devices, some of which apparently haven't been inspected in three years, Hainer said.
Public Utilities, which will take over the program Feb. 15, plans to check all 5,000 devices by the end of the year, said Tom Leahy, the department's director.
So far, officials have not found any problems in the devices that have been checked. "It's a serious documentation problem," Leahy said. "We have yet to find a serious backflow problem."
The State Health Department, which reviews the city's program, will be notified, Leahy said.
Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121, deirdre.fernandes@pilotonline.com
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City backflow inspections.
quoting the Virginia Pilot's own article: " Backflow preventers ensure that contaminated water is kept away from the city’s water supply. THERE ARE ABOUT 5,000 IN VIRGINIA BEACH. , AND STATE LAW REQUIRES CITIES TO INSPECT THEM EVERY Year." (my caps) There are approximately SEVEN (7) plumbing inspectors employed by the City. If all the inspectors did nothing but backflow inspections 365 days per year, they would each have to do nearly 14 inspections in an 8 hour day, including travel time with no days off, no holidays. NO other plumbing inspectons would be possible. Do the math before you organize a lynch mob!! They do have many other inspections to do, esp important when a less than reliable contractor is hired to update YOUR home!
5000 inspectins - 7 inspectors
Of course, my earlier comment is not meant to reduce the seriousness and importance of Backflow inspections, nor to imply that the devices were NOT inspected, even if documentation is not readily found. I am not addressing that issue. Simply that such matters are more involved and require processese that cannot be condensed into one or two irate online comments and newspaper headlines. Obviously, the system may need examining and corrections may need to be made. It is the knee jerk premature "lynch mob" mentality I was primarilY addressing.
Classic example....
In a classic example of CoVB failing to seriously follow up on commercial contamination of H2O resources. I personally have filed several complaints with the Dept of Public Utilities concerning a restuarant located at 4005 Atlantic Ave on the Oceanfront which appears to routinely discharge gray water into the storm water system in front of the facility's trash and supply loading gates. The storm water grates stink of grease and rotting food waste for the entire block in warm weather. The public sidewalk is stained and often slick as a result of the discharge above ground. The City's response to the complaints? Nada, nothing, nil...
a vital issue
This is criminal. The safety of a city's water supply should have high priority with ANY community. This is one of the vital services we rely on and pay our taxes for. Those responsible for this should be criminally prosecuted.
FOR PROFIT ONLY.
The government should stay out of water quality control issues and let the private sector be responsible for the quality of water that is consumed; this must be a "for profit" issue in order to boost small business. Big government should stay-out of our water quality issue and allow "for profit" entities to take control of it. Profit "MUST" be the first and last concern here, not water quality.
"Water quality" a PROFIT issue????
This one of the most absurd statements i have seen in a newspaper in years!
The quality of the our drinking water, the water that our wives, husbands, children drink is absolutely and completely NOT an issue to boost small business. Unlike some third world countries, where the water is consistently toxic and disease ridden, American drinking water is by far one of the safest in the world. and this is due to government regulation and oversight. "BUSINESS" has the worst traffic record in history regarding safeguarding drinking water and other natural resources. You have GOT to be kidding, Sir!! the Mind boggles ar your statement!!
WTH is going on with public safety?
Cheri Hainer, the city's building codes administrator, said the problem was shoddy paperwork and not a lack of inspections.
PROVE IT! If there is no paperwork to indicate an inspection took place, then I say NO inspection took place. I don't buy into the statement "The paperwork kinda disappeared". As a resident and a taxpayer, I demand someones head on a stick. I demand the individuals be fired and a safety stand-down for all city workers. This is unacceptable. Where I work there is an inspection tag on every backflow preventer. This tag gets initialed and dated as to when the inspection took place. Stop with the excuses for stupidity and do what us taxpayers pay your salary to do! What the heck are you people thinking?
Everything kills you.
This is why I drink from bottled water even though they say the plastic may cause cancer.
What is missing from the article is what businesses have this tainted water? Is it a restaurant? A business building? How does this information help the public.
So I can avoid drinking any backflow water. Nothing is 100% perfect, so even if they say there is no contamination, how would we know if there was no inspection.
According to the laws of probabiliy, SOME backflow preventers should have failed or broke. But back-flow of contaminated water that may contain all sorts of sewage? Come on, I like to know what to avoid.
Lazy humans...
...not even willing to protect their owns lives. Verified. Good enough anyway... Proposal accepted, pollution is just fine with humans... Evidently...
The biggest scam in history
Yes we need prevention of contaminated water. But on every device instead of one unit protecting the building from the rest of the water source makes sense. Not protecting room 413 from 412. I find this to be a monster costing a lot of money to business and accomplishing very little. Why? While the large main bf preventers are accessible and tested the smaller ones are a pain. The 10,000’s which are on isolated devices are often not installed properly and fail routinely. The state requires plumbers to past a bf class. I have seen some of these so called installations and testing and as Sarah P said "win the future” the customers are getting ”best friended” over the continuing cost of maintain improperly installed devices.