Metropolitan Rebates for LA Schools Easy as A-B-C
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Metropolitan and Southern California Gas Co
. last week awarded the Los Angeles Unified School District nearly $600,000 in energy and water efficiency program rebates.
The rebates were for new high-efficiency natural gas pressure-less steamers that will be used in kitchens at about 90 LAUSD schools and cook vegetables, pot stickers and dumplings for more than 120,000 students.
The steamers replaced older units that were much less energy and water efficient. The new equipment will save about 163 million gallons of water over its lifetime.
“Metropolitan has made it a priority to improve water efficiency wherever we can – in homes, in businesses and in schools. We’re grateful to LAUSD and SoCalGas for making the effort to conserve water,” said water efficiency manager
Bill McDonnell
.
LAUSD received $96,000 in from Met's “SoCalWater$mart” program and $482,500 from SoCalGas’ “Energy Efficiency Rebates for Business” program.
The school district's Director of Food Services Manish Singh, said, “The steamers will provide us with the capability to add to our menu selection, which will benefit our students.”
Metropolitan and SoCalGas representatives presented the rebate checks at the LAUSD's May 28 Board of Education meeting.
In addition to incentives for replacing grass with California Friendly native plants, Met offers residential and commercial rebates for appliances, toilets, sprinklers and other items through its SoCalWater$mart program.
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Maintaining Reliability at Water Treatment Plants
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Flocculators. If you’re tempted to ask for the language of origin or for the word to be used in a sentence, you’re probably not alone.
Flocculators might be a funny word, but they play a vital role at our water treatment plants.
To maintain the effectiveness of the treatment process, the Board approved an $8.8 million contract to rehabilitate the flocculators at the Jensen Water Treatment Plant.
The Jensen plant is in Granada Hills. It began service in 1972 and treats water from the State Water Project for delivery to Metropolitan’s Central Pool and service areas on the west side of the distribution system.
Jensen is the second largest water treatment plant in America.
Like all of Metropolitan’s water treatment plants, Jensen uses a process of disinfection with ozone, coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, granular media filtration, and chloramine disinfection.
The basins contain flocculators comprised of horizontal rotating shafts with paddle arms. They slowly mix the coagulation chemicals to form larger particles, which settle to the bottom of sedimentation basins and are removed.
In his presentation to the board’s E&O committee, Team Manager
JR Rhoads
explained that over time, the components have gradually deteriorated and no longer provide uniform flow distribution.
Presentation
Met staff will
prepare record drawings,
perform inspections, and improve control systems. The contractor will replace/ refurbish mechanical equipment, paddle and baffle boards and coordinate with plant operations to sequence work and minimize impacts.
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Tapping the Talent and Skills of Younger Workers
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After graduating from Northern Arizona University, conducting water quality assessments in India and Tanzania through the Engineers Without Borders program and working for a private contractor, civil engineer
Clay Anderson
came to work for Metropolitan a couple of years ago.
And he’s not yet 30 years old.
Clay
is part of the growing number of young employees that make up our workforce.
He is on a construction management team at Diamond Valley Lake that does much of its work along the Colorado River Aqueduct.
Clay
just finished seismic retrofit work at the switch houses of each of the five desert pumping plants. Living at the desert facilities gave him a better appreciation for the work and lifestyle of Met’s desert staff.
Last month, he took to the water as a volunteer pontoon boat driver for Solar Cup. “Maintaining a good position for the scorekeepers on the windy lake was difficult, but I enjoyed getting to know the other volunteers and watching the boat races,” he said.
Clay’s dad
Eric Anderson
worked at La Verne before retiring eight years ago.
Clay
remembers going to Diamond Valley Lake as a kid, before they even put in a drop of water. Still, he didn’t imagine himself working for the district until one of his father’s co-workers encouraged him to apply for a job that matched his qualifications. “It was a rigorous interview process, but I’m very glad to be working here now,” he said.
In high school,
Clay
played bass and trumpet. His busy work schedule doesn’t allow for much music these days but he does hope to start finding more time for his other passion, riding motorcycles.
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