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Bobby Bond Jr. shows the skills that won him the title of "Master Opeartor" at the 2018 MSA San DIego/APWA Skills Competition. Poto: Courtesy MSA San DIego

Water Authority A Winner At Skills Competition

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Two San Diego County Water Authority employees took home first place honors in the annual – and unusual – competition that tests the mettle of public works professionals with backhoes, wheelbarrows and other tools of the trade.

Bobby Bond Jr. of the San Diego County Water Authority wins the title of "Master Operator" at the MSA San Diego/APWA 2018 Skills Competition. Photo: Courtesy MSA San DIego

Bobby Bond Jr. of the San Diego County Water Authority wins the title of “Master Operator” at the MSA San Diego/APWA 2018 Skills Competition. Photo: Courtesy MSA San DIego

And one Water Authority veteran – Bobby Bond Jr. – earned the title of 2018 Master Operator for completing all the events in the lowest combined time.

Twelve teams of four crew members participated, and 24 operators vied for the title of Master Operator at the July event hosted by the San Diego Chapter of the Maintenance Supervisors Association and American Public Works Association in Chula Vista.

The City of Chula Vista won the team title for 2018, followed by the City of El Cajon and the Water Authority in third place. Representing the Water Authority was the four-man team of Bond, Patrick Barreiro, John Brown and Tony Cepeda.

Brown took first in the backhoe operator category, and Cepeda won first place in the wheelbarrow skills. He said his co-workers have been supportive and happy with the Water Authority team’s third place finish.

“It’s fun, it’s teamwork building, and having a good time,” he said. “We work with each other every day, we are like a family here.”

Annual event tests same skills used maintaining vital infrastructure

The annual event tests the same skills participants use while maintaining water and wastewater systems, streets, and other vital infrastructure residents and businesses rely on every day. Tasks included Backhoe Skills, Skid Steer Skills, Mini-Excavator Skills, Sign Assembly, and Wheelbarrow Skills. The team with the best overall combined time won the perpetual trophy, along with bragging rights.

After winning the backhoe category in 2017, Bond captured the 2018 Master Operator title by completing tasks in the lowest overall combined time. He said the competition may be challenging, but it is child’s play compared to the work he and his colleagues perform every day for the Water Authority.

“I’ve dug around utilities including chemical lines, fiber optic lines, and around aqueducts,” said Bond. “I once dug a water line 200 feet and crossed 40 different utilities.”

Brown agrees. “Knocking a tennis ball off a cone (in competition) equals breaking a pipe potentially” on the job, he said.

Cepeda, a Maintenance Worker I who has been with the Water Authority just over a year, helps maintain roads along major Water Authority pipeline corridors and other major structures. “I went for it, gave it a shot, and out of luck I took first place,” said Cepeda. His strategy in maneuvering the wheelbarrow on the course against the clock? “Just run fast!”

Also winning honors was David Hernado of the Vallecitos Water District, who placed first in the Sign Assembly Skills Competition.

Brown and Bond Jr. will compete for Water Authority in upcoming national competition

John Brown of the San Diego County Water Authority wins the Backhoe Skills category at the MSA San Diego/APWA 2018 Skills Competition. Photo: Courtesy MSA San DIego

Along with the good-natured competition, the event’s main objective is to provide valuable training, and showcase the Maintenance Supervisors Association vendors who provide the materials, supplies, and equipment needed to keep regional public works functioning at their highest level. Three hundred members attended this year’s event.

APWA will sponsor the top two equipment operators including Brown and Bond Jr. to compete at the 2018 APWA PWX National APWA ROADEO in Kansas City, Missouri on August 28-29. “We’re real busy at work, we’re running every day,” said Bond, which will allow him and Brown to get in plenty of practice before heading to Kansas City.

The full list of results:

Wheel Barrow Skills Competition:

Tony Cepeda of the San Diego County Water Authority wins the Wheel Barrow Skills category at the MSA San Diego/APWA 2018 Skills Competition. Photo: Courtesy MSA San DIego

1st Place
Tony Cepeda, San Diego County Water Authority 1 minute, 1 second

2nd Place
Sean McRory, City of Encinitas, 1 minute, 2 seconds

3rd Place
Margarito Corado, City of Chula Vista, 1 minute, 4 Seconds
Mario Serrano, City of Vista, 1 minute, 4 Seconds

Sign Assembly Skills Competition:

1st Place – Tie
David Hernado, Vallecitos Water District. 2 minutes, 29 Seconds

2nd Place
Esteban Garcia, City of El Cajon, 2 minutes, 34 Seconds

3rd Place
Arturo Garcia, City of San Diego, 2 minutes, 38 Seconds

Backhoe Operator Competition:

1st Place
John Brown, San Diego County Water Authority, 1 minute, 35 Seconds

2nd Place
Bobby Bond, San Diego County Water Authority, 1 minutes, 36 Seconds

3rd Place
Bryce Greschke, City of Poway, 1 minute, 51 Seconds

Skid Steer Operator Competition:

1st Place
Brian Smith, City of La Mesa, 1 minutes, 40 Seconds

2nd Place
Derek Imoto, City of Encinitas, 2 minutes, 11 Seconds

3rd Place
John Brown, San Diego County Water Authority, 2 minutes, 33 Seconds

Mini Excavator Operator Competition:

1st Place
Geovanni Meza, City of El Cajon, 38 Seconds

2nd Place
John Collingwood, City of San Diego, 39 Seconds

3rd Place
Bobby Bond, San Diego County Water Authority, 47 Seconds

Overall “Roadeo” Competition Champions

1st Place
City of Chula Vista, 9 minutes, 56 Seconds

2nd Place
City of El Cajon, 10 minutes, 26 Seconds

3rd Place
San Diego County Water Authority, 11 minutes, 5 Seconds

Water Main Break Floods Midway Homes with Water and Mud

/in , /by /NBC 7 San Diegoby Omari Fleming

A water main running along a hillside between two residential streets burst Monday causing a mudslide that flooded nearly a dozen Midway District homes and displaced residents.

The 8-inch concrete main broke between Larga Circle and Oleander Drive around 2:30 p.m. The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department (SDFD) told NBC 7 that four homes on Oleander and six below on Larga Circle were evacuated.

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San Diego’s Daytime High Hits 80-or-Above Range for the 17th Straight Day

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Gary Robbins

The daytime high in San Diego hit 83 degrees on Monday, the 17th straight day that the high was 80 or above, says the National Weather Service says.

And the same is likely to happen on Tuesday.

A high pressure system and unusually warm ocean temperatures are fueling the hot stretch, and there’s little relief in sight. Seasonal monsoonal moisture is expected to return on Wednesday and last until Friday. Thunderstorms are possible in the mountains.

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Oroville Dam: See Before-and-After Video of Construction Progress

/in , /by /East Bay Timesby Paul Rogers

Eighteen months after the dramatic failure of the spillways at Oroville Dam in Northern California, a disaster that led to the evacuation of 188,000 people, construction is on schedule to complete the concrete work in the main spillway by Nov. 1.

In recent weeks, 805 workers from Kiewit, the Nebraska-based company that was awarded the main construction contract on the project, have continued to rebuild sections of the massive 3,000-foot-long spillway.

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Why One Arizona County Could Upend the Southwest’s Drought Plan

/in , /by /Water Deeplyby Matt Weiser

Serious water shortages on the Colorado River could be less than two years away, according to new federal estimates. Yet after 19 years of drought, just 500 farmers in one Arizona county may decide the fate of the entire Southwest: By holding tight to their own temporary water supply, they could stall a conservation plan designed to save the entire region from water shortages.

Pinal County, sandwiched between Phoenix and Tucson, is the third-largest farming county in Arizona and 54th in the nation, generating about $1 billion in annual sales, according to United States Department of Agriculture statistics. Beef cattle and milk generate more than half of that income, with cotton and alfalfa the next largest commodities

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California’s Biggest Environmental Challengers? Water. Climate Change. Political Hot Air.

/in , /by /Sacramento Beeby Editorial Staff

California Influencers, a group of the state’s most respected experts in public policy, politics and government, weighed in on this question: What is the biggest environmental challenge facing the state?

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Imperial Beach, Federal Government to Face-off in Court Over Tijuana Sewage Pollution

/in /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

South Bay cities are preparing to go head-to-head with the federal government this week in a legal battle that could force the Trump administration to plug sewage spilling from Tijuana into San Diego.

Local officials filed the lawsuit in March after demanding for more than a year that federal infrastructure along the border be beefed up to ensure that flows from Mexico are captured before they foul San Diego wetlands and beaches.

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California Farm Baron Offered To Drop Water Lawsuit — If His Family Got A Special Exemption

/in , /by /Palm Springs Desert Sunby Sammy Roth

A lawsuit in California’s Imperial Valley could determine who controls the single largest share of Colorado River water in the West — a few hundred landowning farmers, or the elected five-member board of the Imperial Irrigation District.

But a newly obtained document shows that the farmer who filed the lawsuit, Mike Abatti, was willing to sidestep that explosive legal question — if he and his family got a special exemption from a plan that could have limited his access to Colorado River water.

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In California’s New Wildfire Reality, Facing the Need for Periodic Fires to Clear Fuel

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Curtis Alexander

When a wall of flames raced up the hillside at Avalanche Creek on a recent afternoon, firefighters in Yosemite National Park had to act quickly.

The giant Ferguson Fire was headed toward the south rim of Yosemite Valley, and if crews didn’t stop it here, the fire would open up on the edge of the park’s most beloved spot. Already, 10,000 acres of Yosemite had been charred, and much of the park was entering its third week of closure.

But just as the blaze began spitting hot embers out of the creek drainage and across Glacier Point Road, where helicopters with water buckets and engine teams with chain saws had staked their line of defense, firefighters caught a break — at least for the moment.

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Few California School Districts Have Tested Water for Lead, Even Though It’s Free

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jill Tucker

As students head back to class across California this month, many will sip water from school fountains or faucets that could contain high levels of lead.

That’s because two-thirds of the state’s 1,026 school districts have not taken advantage of a free state testing program to determine whether the toxic metal is coming out of the taps and, if so, whether it exceeds federal standards. Among the 330 districts that have started or completed testing, more than half identified at least one school where levels exceeded the federal standard, according to data submitted to the state by June 1.

The testing by local water utilities has been available to every public and private school in the state for more than 18 months. Exposure to high levels of lead can cause irreversible neurological and brain damage, including lowering a child’s IQ.

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