San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation Commission is in the process of developing a municipal service review for the San Diego County Water Authority, and a presentation at the Feb. 5 LAFCO meeting noted that the MSR would focus on the SDCWA voting and rate structures and alignment between CWA projects and actual needs.
The Fallbrook Public Utility District will be funding some of its Capital Improvement Program expenses with revenue bonds. A 5-0 FPUD board vote Jan. 22 authorized the issuance of the 2024 Water Revenue Bonds, approved the form of the financing documents, and authorized FPUD staff to finalize and execute the financing documents.
Registration is now open for the 2024 Women in Water Symposium. The event returns for its seventh year with a full-day event on Thursday, March 21, 2024, at Cuyamaca College.
While open to all participants, the full-day, in-person program theme is “Empowering The Next Generation of Women.” It offers valuable opportunities for networking, education, and career growth. The program combines insightful panel discussions with dynamic speaker sessions.
The conference is designed to help participants develop new skills, connect with their industry colleagues, and make meaningful strides in their careers.
“Our Women in Water Symposium brings together exceptional women from all areas of the water industry, along with talented women in training and those interested in water industry career opportunities,” said event chairperson Maria Rose, a management analyst with the San Diego County Water Authority.
“This annual symposium offers an unparalleled opportunity to listen and learn from your peers and leaders across San Diego County.”
Attendees at the 2024 Women in Water Symposium on March 21, 2024 have an opportunity to speak with water and wastewater industry leaders. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
Planned sessions address career development, leadership, mentoring, interviewing and negotiation tips, diversity, and dealing with change. The day concludes with a networking opportunity at the Water Conservation Garden.
General admission is $35. Attendance is free for students, educators, and counselors. Event registration is available online.
Event details and updates will be posted at the Cuyamaca College Center for Water Studies website.
City of Escondido Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator Carrie Selby is among a growing number of women working in water and wastewater industry careers. Photo: City of Escondido
The water and wastewater industry offers vast opportunities in engineering, operations, finance, public affairs, human resources, administration, and information technology.
Since 2017, the Water Authority’s “Faces of the Water Industry” campaign has highlighted nearly 200 employees in San Diego County across multiple water agencies and job types.
The informational campaign is designed to introduce the wide variety of career opportunities available at all skill levels with an emphasis on welcoming a wide-ranging talent pool of candidates, including women.
Approximately 4,500 professionals serve the San Diego region in water and wastewater careers. More than 1,400 of those workers are expected to reach retirement age within the next five years. Water and wastewater treatment plant operators in California earn an annual mean wage of more than $77,890 in 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. California is one of the states with the greatest employment opportunities in this career field.
There was a time when Lois and Jeff Scott’s El Cajon front yard was awash in lawn, from the street to just a few feet from the house itself, where a bed grew roses and a large rosemary bush.
The San Diego County Water Authority is accepting applications for the Spring 2024 Citizens Water Academy class. In three class sessions, participants will learn firsthand about critical water issues affecting the region and go behind the scenes with water planners, managers, engineers, and other staff to gain a deeper understanding of the Water Authority’s life-sustaining mission.
The application period is open from January 29 to March 1, with the class taking place in mid-May. Participants must attend all three sessions to graduate. Applications are available on the Water Authority website.
Spring 2024 Schedule:
Session 1 – Wednesday lunch hour, May 15 via Zoom. Welcome and overview by Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham.
Session 2 – Thursday evening, May 16. Dinner, presentations, and activities. Topic: planning for a water-resilient future.
Session 3 – Saturday, May 18, half day. Breakfast and lunch, and behind-the-scenes tours of the Water Authority’s Control Room, Emergency Operations Center, and Olivenhain Dam and Pump Station.
Since the Citizens Water Academy was launched in 2015, nearly 800 civic leaders have participated and become water knowledge ambassadors. The Water Academy is geared toward civic and business leaders. Class participants come from a wide range of backgrounds and professions. They include civic and business leaders as well as elected official representatives from across the region.
“It’s easy to take our safe, reliable supply of water for granted,” said General Manager Dan Denham. “We turn on the faucet and there’s the water, ready to be transformed into our morning cup of coffee. But how that water gets from point A to point B requires an astounding work of engineering and strategic planning. The Water Academy is all about connecting our community to this intricate world.”
Citizens Water Academy participants learn about Operations and Maintenance over breakfast. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority.
The Citizens Water Academy launched in Fall 2014 and was honored with the Silver Bernays Mark of Excellence Award from the San Diego/Imperial Counties Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America in 2015.
Graduates give the program top reviews, with 99% of participants saying they would recommend the Water Academy to a colleague and nearly 50% of graduates participating in the Water Authority’s alumni network.
At its January meeting, the Otay Water District board of directors elected new officers to lead the District’s board for 2024. The board elected director Jose Lopez, who represents division four, as president.
A south San Diego water district is thinking about powering itself with energy from the sun. Leaders at Sweetwater Authority, which serves National City, western Chula Vista and Bonita, hired a contractor to study how floating solar panels on its namesake reservoir could reduce its budget.
Officials from Northern California visited San Diego County this week as part of a tour focused on regional water use and reliability investments that have been touted as a national model of water management.
San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham welcomed about two dozen leaders at the start of the event, explaining how San Diego County’s long-term investment strategy is fueling a new approach to water management. In 2022, drought created dire water shortages across Southern California, but San Diego had sufficient supplies due to a combination of conservation and investments.
FlorAbunda Nursery owner Dana Groot is a fifth-generation nurseryman and president of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
“That got us to a point where we started thinking about how we can do things even more differently, and we started working on cooperative agreements with Metropolitan and Imperial Irrigation District and other Southern California water providers to share some of this water we have invested in,” said Denham.
The Water Authority was represented by Board Vice Chair Nick Serrano and Secretary Frank Hilliker, along with Board Member Lois Fong-Sakai and Gail Goldberg, two of the Water Authority’s delegates to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California organized the tour, in collaboration with the Water Authority for the San Diego portion. MWD was represented by Board Chair Adan Ortega and other Board members, along with General Manager Adel Hagekhalil.
The “inspection trip” was designed to give county officials from the Bay-Delta region a behind-the-scenes look at water management in Southern California, where water management, climate and infrastructure are very different than in the northern part of the state.
San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Dan Denham welcomed about two dozen leaders at the start of the event, explaining how San Diego County’s long-term investment strategy is fueling a new approach to water management. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
The tour started with City of San Diego Utilities Director Juan Guerreiro at the City of San Diego’s Pure Water program – a phased, multi-year project that will provide nearly half of San Diego’s water supply locally by the end of 2035. Pure Water San Diego will use proven water purification technology to clean recycled water to produce safe, high-quality drinking water. In addition, said Serrano, the city has year-round permanent mandatory water restrictions in place, designed to promote water conservation as a permanent way of life in San Diego.
“We are enormously proud of our citizens and our local water conservation efforts which have reduced City’s per capita water usage to 100 gpcd for the past five years,” Serrano said.
Next, visitors stopped at FlorAbunda Nursery in Escondido’s Elfin Forest. The nursery was founded by Dana Groot, a fifth-generation nurseryman whose ancestors founded the Sluis & Groot Seed Company in Holland in the 1870s. FlorAbunda focuses on the commercial production of premium poinsettias and hydrangeas, with five generations of flower and seed production experience and the best of modern genetics and growing techniques.
The FlorAbunda Nursery in Elfin Forest is a wholesale grower of potted hydrangea, poinsettia, succulents, house plants and other flowering plants, using high-efficiency drop irrigation. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
Groot, who serves as president of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, showcased the water efficiency of San Diego County’s farm industry. San Diego County is home to more farms – more than 5,500 – than any other county in the U.S., and it is the nation’s top producer of nursery plants and floriculture. Driven both by the cost of water and a conservation ethic, the region’s farmers are strong proponents of water stewardship.
At FlorAbunda, Groot’s five-acre farm is entirely on high-efficiency drip irrigation. “The goal is to keep the water on the targeted areas,” said Groot, who was joined for the tour by Farm Bureau Past President Enrico Ferro and Hilliker, who sits on the Farm Bureau Board. “It’s kind of been a company policy. Everything is going to be on drip. We thought it was the responsible thing to do.”
After leaving San Diego County, the tour group headed for MWD’s Diamond Valley Lake, and then points north, including the Grace Napolitano Pure Water Southern California Innovation Center.
The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) is warning residents about imposter water agency “workers” seeking access to homes.
San Diego County residents were warned to be vigilant for imposter water agency “workers” knocking on doors and requesting entry to homes to test water quality or making sales pitches, the San Diego County Water Authority announced Tuesday.
