Out in the Community
As part of its standard to forge and maintain long-term, positive and proactive relationships with members of the local community and greater water industry and to be transparent about its operations and programs, OCWD board members and staff speak regularly before groups and at events. We participated in the following during April:
- Director Stephen Sheldon and Executive Director of Engineering and Water Resources John Kennedy provided an OCWD update to the Newport Beach City Council.
- General Manager Mike Markus participated in the Global Water Summit in Madrid, Spain and presented about the Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS).
- John Kennedy also provided an OCWD presentation to the Yorba Linda City Council and participated in a web cast for the Groundwater Resources Association regarding the District’s rate history
- Executive Director of Planning and Natural Resources Greg Woodside attended the John Muir Birthday-Earth Day Celebration to receive two John Muir awards on behalf of the District.
- Director of Water Production/GWRS Mehul Patel and a representative from Black & Veatch provided a webinar about the GWRS Initial Expansion.
- Recharge Planning Manager Adam Hutchinson represented OCWD at Katella High School’s Grand Reopening; in a panel discussion at the Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF34) held in Pasadena, CA. The topic of his presentation was “OCWD’s Experience with Collaborating with Stakeholders on Reusing Treated Groundwater;” and at a brown bag seminar hosted by the University of Arizona’s Water Resources Research Center. The presentation was entitled: Transforming Wastewater to Drinking Water: How Two Agencies Collaborated to Build the World’s Largest Indirect Potable Reuse Project.
Public Affairs staff participated in an Earth Day event at Downtown Disney where they distributed GWRS bottled water and provided information about the GWRS and in CoastAlong, an event hosted by UCLA Sustainability, where they provided GWRS water tastings and provided information about the project.- Principal Scientist Menu Leddy gave a Groundwater Replenishment System presentation at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln as part of its water and natural resources seminar.
- Postdoctoral Research Associate Shannon Roback gave two presentations at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in San Francisco, titled “Validation and optimization of an alternative method for NDMA analysis requiring less time, cost, and sample volume” and “Post treatment challenges at advanced potable reuse plants: Corrosion, metals mobilization and the reappearance of disinfection byproducts“. Both projects are externally funded by the Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF).