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 recently participated in the following:
• Director Vicente Sarmiento and Engineer Ben Smith discussed the Mid Basin Injection: Centennial Park project at a city of Santa Ana Connect to Council event.
• Executive Director of Operations/GWRS Mehul Patel presented on the GWRS at the International Desalination Association conference in Valencia, Spain.
• GWRS Project Manager Sandy Scott-Roberts was the keynote speaker at the CONCASAN conference in Brazil where GWRS water was also presented to attendees.
• Research Director Megan Plumlee and Executive Director of Water Quality & Technical Resources Jason Dadakis worked closely with representatives from Water Reuse California for preparation and participation in the Bioanalytical Screening of Recycled Water Workshop in Costa Mesa, where Dr. Plumlee also gave a presentation.
• In addition, Dr. Plumlee spoke at the 2018 Japan-America Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in Tsukuba, Japan, about advances in water quality analysis to ensure high quality of recycled drinking water.
• Chief Hydrogeologist Roy Herndon was interviewed by public affairs personnel of CalTech regarding a technical paper recently published about a study in Orange County and Los Angeles County that correlated ground surface changes with groundwater level changes.
• Recharge Planning Manager Adam Hutchinson presented OCWD’s Alternative to a Groundwater Sustainably Plan (GSP) at a workshop convened by the Department of Water Resources and the Groundwater Resources Association of California on how to prepare GSPs.
• Adam also provided an overview of the Santa Ana Conservation and Conjunctive Use Program to the Supply Reliability Programs Committee of Irvine Ranch Water District.
• Senior Communications Specialist Diane Pinnick participated as a judge panelist for the Coastkeeper W.H.A.L.E.S. program for high school students.
• Engineer Ben Smith presented about the Mid-Basin Injection Centennial Park project at the June Orange County WateReuse meeting. He also participated in an Advisory Council meeting at Citrus College to discuss how to improve the current curriculum of their Water Technology Department.