The Baltimore City Council held a second hearing Thursday holding the Department of Public Works (DPW) accountable for its handling of the E. coli crisis earlier this month in West Baltimore.

DPW Director Jason Mitchell said they may finally have an idea of where the contamination came from.

“What this shows is there are multiple factors that came together to create a scenario that likely contributed to the contamination and the area of impact,” said one DPW employee. “Again to reiterate the large mains being out of service was the root cause. The Kirk Avenue valve repair and the sinkhole on North Avenue.”

It was those problems compromising the water line that led DPW to shut off the Vernon Pump Station, reverting supply from the area of impact to Lake Ashburton where a sinkhole there lowered the chlorine levels in the water.

“So to recap a series of DPW events and decisions made by DPW to correct those events that led to the contamination is that correct director,” Councilman Yitzy Schleifer asked.

“It was the result of aging infrastructure something this city and all cities are dealing with. I wouldn’t say it was a public works issue. What it was was a mother nature issue,” Mitchell said.

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The other reason for Thursday’s hearing was also to better understand the communication failures that occurred and why the public wasn’t informed sooner about the E. coli in their water and when they were told about it why it was only on Twitter and Nextdoor.

Councilman Yitzy Schleifer questioned why DPW’s communication department couldn’t be made available for the hearings and if they could be in the future.

“This whole situation was a failure of communications. So had the communications properly communicated to the public immediately and done so in the way they do on many other things, we wouldn’t have been here today,” he said.

Schleifer was told the communications team wouldn’t come to a hearing and that the director could answer all questions.

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“Something does not add up why wouldn’t the people who were so active and involved in this situation from the start and all the communication to the public why they wouldn’t be here is really mind-boggling,” he said.

Yolanda Winkler is the chief of DPW’s communication and strategic alliance team.

We reached out to her directly to see if she had been asked to be a part of these hearings and we have yet to hear back.