Preparing for Summer Fire Season
Summer is here and the heat is rising. When temperatures rise, the Irvine Ranch Water District operations staff remains in a constant state of readiness to respond to fires and/or loss of power in our service area.The water operations department routinely patrols and monitors the canyon areas. A Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is used to remotely monitor all aspects of pump station and reservoir operation. This system uses radio, phone lines and cellular telemetry units to relay information.
All of the pump stations serving the canyon areas are equipped with generators that provide power automatically in the event of a power outage. These generators are tested monthly to ensure proper operation. The fuel tanks are kept full, and the fuel is routinely filtered and sampled for quality. The automatic transfer switches, which direct generator power to pump stations, are inspected and tested annually.
IRWD has battled fire season before. In 2007, the Santiago Fire burned over 28,000 acres, most of which were in the IRWD service area. When the fire occurred, IRWD crews implemented emergency operations procedures and worked around the clock to keep the water flowing to firefighters by connecting emergency generators, operating pumps and manually measuring reservoir depths in areas where downed power lines disabled electronic monitoring systems. IRWD crews installed portable diesel tanks throughout the area to refuel the generators and installed remote communication devices to restore monitoring systems until phone lines became operational again. Due to these efforts, water service to firefighters and residents was maintained throughout the fire episode. After the fire, all sites were evaluated, resulting in improvements to several pump stations including the installation of block walls for added fire protection.
IRWD customers with homes in the foothill and canyon areas are encouraged to look into the benefits of maintaining fire resistant landscaping. The Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) endorses planting shrubs such as monkeyflower and autumn sage as well as trees like the California sycamore and toyon. Learn more about these plants on the IRWD website.
Plant maintenance is also necessary for fire resistant plants to offer protection during a wildfire. Watch this video to view an OCFA guide on fire resistant plants.
Bruce Newell, Senior Reserve Officer at OCFA Station 16 in Modjeska Canyon, also recommends visiting OCFA's website, ocfa.org. "We are currently in the READY stage," explains Newell. "It is the perfect time to clean up around any structure and make a good defensible space. A wonderful wet winter has produced tall grasses and other plants that are now drying out and must be removed or cut back. Warmer weather will soon heighten the risk of fire."
Another important thing for Canyon residents to do is to sign up for IRWD’s CodeRED system. Do not wait for an emergency to happen before you sign up for CodeRED, a high-volume, high-speed system for mass emergency notifications. Since 2010, IRWD has kept customers informed in times of water-related emergencies with CodeRED. Customers have the option of receiving voice, email or text messages within an hour of an emergency. Signing up for CodeRED is as easy as going to the IRWD website.
IRWD Remembers Joan Arneson, General Counsel for IRWD
Joan C. Arneson, IRWD General Counsel and longtime member of the Irvine Ranch Water District family, has died.
“We have lost one of California’s best, someone whose impact on the entire water community will be felt for a very long time,” said IRWD Board President Douglas Reinhart. “Her wise, yet creative, legal counsel thoughtfully and successfully guided IRWD for decades.”
Arneson first arrived at IRWD in 1978 as a young associate of the well-respected Orange County legal firm lead by Alexander Bowie. She was appointed as IRWD General Counsel in 1984.
Her groundbreaking legal work on budget based rate structures, recycled water and environmental policy, water banking, energy storage systems, special district finance and real estate ownership laid the critical foundation for some of IRWD’s most noteworthy programs. Her thoughts and guidance influenced in some way nearly every project and program implemented by IRWD, from the San Joaquin Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary and the Natural Treatment System to the San Joaquin Reservoir, the Michelson Water Recycling Plant and the soon-to-be completed Biosolids and Energy Recovery Project.
Over the years, Arneson served on various legal and policy committees for the Association of California Water Agencies, the California Association of Sanitation Agencies and the California WateReuse Association, helping craft important water policy legislation and regulations.
In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the District, Joan was awarded an IRWD Certificate of Commendation as a key partner in service from the Board of Directors of the Irvine Ranch Water District for her 25 years plus of excellent service to Irvine Ranch Water District.
“Joan’s creative, solid counsel on technical solutions to policies and projects provided an incalculable benefit to both the agency and our customers,” remembered Paul Cook, IRWD General Manager. “She was a friend and a colleague. She will be missed.”
Joan Arneson was a partner at Bowie, Arneson, Wiles & Giannone. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Juris Doctorate from the University of California at Davis.
These Customers Fixed Their Leaks!
Congratulations to Stephen Beever of Lake Forest, who was the grand prize winner in our annual Fix-a-Leak Contest. He was more than happy to visit IRWD with his best friend, Sierra Mist, to claim his $500 Home Depot gift card. He said he plans on putting the card to good use in sprucing up his yard.
Three other IRWD customers each received $100 Home Depot gift cards for sending in photos of themselves spreading mulch in their gardens, resetting their irrigation timers, or repairing their sprinklers lines. Robert Chan, Soo Hyun Choi and Ashley Sarmiento are all Irvine Residents.
The contest is held each year in March. Customers must complete a 15-minute online customer training portal, which provides information on how to fix certain leaks around their homes.
Congratulations, all!
Visit our RightScape page for information on rebates, workshops, landscaping tips and yes, how to fix leaks.
IRWD Wins Innovation Award For Energy Storage Program
The IRWD Energy Storage Project was recently selected as a winner at the 6th Annual Golden Hub of Innovation Awards by the Association of California Cities - Orange County (ACC-OC).
The Golden Hub of Innovation Awards recognizes local agencies, cities and individuals that successfully implement programs and policies that save taxpayer dollars and improve services for local residents.
IRWD won the award for its Energy Storage Project, a public-private partnership with Advanced Microgrid Solutions to install the largest network of energy storage systems at a public water agency in the United States. The cutting-edge grid support project will enable IRWD to store energy using Tesla batteries, allowing it to reduce demand from the grid when requested by the utility without interrupting water treatment operations and reducing the need for additional supply from fossil fuel generation in a region challenged by the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
For more information about IRWD's Energy Storage Project, go here.
For more information about ACC-OC, go here.
Delivery of Tesla battery storage units at IRWD DATS facility
New Tesla battery storage units at IRWD DATS facility
Inspecting newly installed Tesla battery storage units
IRWD Professionals Assure Water Quality
When it comes to delivering safe water to our customers, the bottom line is that Irvine Ranch Water District meets or exceeds all state and federal guidelines for drinking water.
Ensuring that quality on a day-to-day basis is the primary responsibility of seven dedicated members of the IRWD Regulatory Compliance Monitoring team who fan out into the community, gathering water samples from one or more of the approximately 200 drinking water sampling sites located in the District.
“Typically, Mondays and Tuesdays are set aside for sampling potable (drinking) water,” said IRWD Senior Scientist John Hayes.
Results of potable water sampling are compiled in the annual Water Quality Report, which is sent out to customers and available on our website.
The sampling sites are located throughout the community. Quite possibly, you might have noticed these sampling cans and wondered what they were, or you might not have noticed them at all. They are designed to pleasantly blend in with the landscape.
Each sampling site chosen represents a portion of the IRWD service area, with accessibility and safety to the field crews in mind. Sampling cans are all painted the same color of light brown with a slight difference – potable water samplings cans have blue decals, while recycled water sampling cans have purple decals. Each can contains a lock that may only be opened by a member of the monitoring team.
Water from IRWD drinking water tank reservoirs and all of the IRWD drinking water wells are also sampled and tested weekly.
Non-Drinking Water Monitoring
In addition to potable water, samples are collected from the San Joaquin Marsh and 11 other Natural Treatment System sites, from Irvine Lake, recycled water reservoirs, and both of the District’s water recycling plants, as well as 26 recycled water distribution system sample sites.
Twice a month, monitoring crews take samples from Irvine Lake, which is the source of raw water treated at the new Baker Water Treatment Plant and also used for some crop irrigation in the IRWD service area. Water in Irvine Lake comes from Lake Matthews in Riverside County. Fine-meshed nets are used to monitor quagga mussel larvae. Quagga Mussels are an invasive species, which multiply at a rapid rate and can clog water delivery pipes. In addition, the lake is monitored for dissolved metals at different depths.
Protecting the Environment
The Water Quality Monitoring Team also plays a key role in IRWD environmental stewardship, with five members of the team overseeing certain responsibilities:
- Industrial waste – the IRWD service area has many industrial-related businesses. IRWD conducts pre-treatment inspections of businesses to ensure no industrial waste is dumped into the sewer system, which could cause upsets in the District’s two wastewater treatment plants.
- Underground storage tank program – IRWD has tanks that provide diesel and gasoline to operate the District’s extensive fleet. These tanks are inspected weekly to ensure there are no leaks.
- Above ground storage tanks containing petroleum-related chemicals at various sites are inventoried once a year and inspected once a week for leaks.
- Hazardous waste program – used motor oil and filters, anti-freeze and paint are stored until they are properly disposed of. The county conducts an annual inspection of the storage site.
- Universal waste – light tubes, circuit boards and batteries and any other “e-waste” is collected and properly disposed of.
More information about water quality is available at our website.
