MWMC Operator Presents at PNCWA Conference

Several of our staff attended this year's Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association Annual Conference in September, in order to continue learning and sharing knowledge with other wastewater professionals. Operator Spencer Goodro presented at the conference on some of the lessons we've learned from our Renewable Natural Gas facility, sharing best management and safety practices for purging gas lines. Other MWMC staff assisted throughout the conference as moderators for the discussion groups. Overall, the conference led to a lot of productive discussions and connections for our wastewater staff and our colleagues from other utilities!

Meet Greg Watkins: Maintenance Supervisor

How long have you worked for the city of Eugene/MWMC?

I started in January 2004, so I’ve worked here 20 years. I did my first internship from college at a wastewater treatment plant, but I didn’t necessarily pursue a career in wastewater. [I] took different industries, did Anheuser-Busch, did Shell Oil. I did both of those in the LA area, and then I wanted to come back to the Pacific Northwest, specifically the Eugene area. I grew up here in Eugene. So I worked for Sony when they had their disc manufacturing plant in Springfield, and then when that closed I needed a job, and the project manager position at the wastewater division opened up, and I got that. Candidly, I always thought I would go for more of an engineering firm kind of a job, but the more I worked here the more I realized that I really liked the work. I like that it’s got mechanical, electrical, biological controls, all aspects of engineering and a variety of projects and the scale from small to large. Management gave me a lot of freedom to make the job and expand and grow where my interests are, and I was given a lot of support and freedom and that just allowed me to grow that position. 

What does your day-to-day work look like?

The maintenance crew [has] morning meetings at 7 o’clock. After that, they go off with their work assignments. I try to touch base with the work section supervisors, see kind of what activities are going on. Then a lot of my day is spent at a computer doing emails or going to meetings. I need to be aware of a lot of what’s going on. I may not intimately involved or have an active role, but I need to know about it to stay informed. One of my potential roles could be an Incident Commander or Operations Chief, so I need to be aware of what operations is doing, of what finance is doing, what maintenance is doing, also capital projects, Springfield partnerships. Having that wholistic understanding helps kind of provide me with the full picture of the needs [and] where my attention needs to be put.

How do you make sense of a system that is so large and complex?

I love it! That’s part of the job satisfaction for me. I love learning how things work and why they work. It is very daunting just how much there is to keep track of, but I also rely on great supervisors [and] work section leads. They are the true experts of their specific crafts. I rely a lot on their judgment and their expertise. I need to know enough to know how all those pieces fit together. Maintenance’s focus to keep all of the assets operating the best that they can, so operations can meet permit and operate everything that they’ve been given as tools. To give operations everything they need, it helps to understand what operations needs, and why they need it, and for how long, and how long they can maybe have an alternate solution. Can they have an outage? Can it be for an hour? Can it be for a month? My time in operations helped me gain a better idea of maybe some of their comfort level and their needs. That can speed up some of the coordination between maintenance and operations.

I love that MWMC does this with the trust and confidence of our communities. You can flush your toilet, and we’ve got it from here. You don’t have to worry about it. We’ll take it from your house, we’ll clean it up, we’ll put in back in the river. You don’t have to understand how, why, you don’t have to worry about backup generators, redundant piping, you know, we’ll take care of it, and you don’t have to worry about it. I really like that I can be a part of a division in MWMC providing that service to the community.

What’s your favorite part of working here?

I like the people. I like the variety and scope of what we do. I like being able to provide a behind-the-scenes service to the community. I enjoy working as a team. When there’s problems, everyone here comes together. It’s not a, “Well I don’t like working with Joe.” It’s, “Come on Joe, we gotta walk in hip-deep in this mess and get this fixed.” But it really feels like everyone here knows the importance of our job, and when it really comes down to an emergency or something urgent, we all keep that mindset of, “What do you need me to do to solve this, to fix it?” And everybody jumps in and is willing to help. Egos go aside. I like that. And most of the time, people are like that outside of emergencies. They wanna share, and they want to do their job well, not just punch the clock and then get out of here. They take a lot of pride.

When we have visitors come in, they look at our facility, that’s it’s clean, well maintained. We try to fix things preventatively instead of react once it’s broke. The Commission’s given us a lot of support and financial resources to be able to have a preventative maintenance program and support taking good care of everything, because it is the long game. It is the hundred year, two hundred year timeline. It’s not a “I need to make profit in the next two years or we’re gonna close shop.” You know? There is that long term investment and mindset culture here.

Going to different conferences, I’m really proud of how MWMC, their vision is very responsible. Like financially, having an equipment replacement fund. Realizing how many districts don’t is just crazy. By having that, it means I have financial resources to do my job well. I don’t have to go and beg for a new pump. There’s a lot of trust with the Commission of, yeah, you do need stuff, and we trust you to do your job well. I see myself working here the rest of my career.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing? What’s Greg like after 5 o’clock?

After 5 o’clock, Greg is at home with his family! I’ve got my wife Julie. We’ve been married for 24 years. We have two kids. Asher’s my oldest; he’s 16, and my younger son is Deacon. He’s 13. And both of them are very involved in various activities. They’re both heavily involved in basketball, and they are in orchestra and band. Myself a nd my family are heavily involved in our church. I help set up sound. So we’re fairly busy. After work I’m usually playing taxi or helping with homework or shopping for more milk, because two teenage boys go through a gallon a day it seems like!

What do you guys like to do as a family?

We like going to the coast. Honestly, my wife and I are fairly introverted, so we kind hang around the house, just spend time as a family, watch a movie. I really like going on trips to the coast, day trip, it’s a good place to be. My wife likes to travel, I’m not as much of a traveler. I’m a day trip kind of guy. But yeah, playing with the kids, spending time around the house.

For me a great vacation is to stay home, mow the lawn, and get a few projects around the house done. That’s a great vacation! I’ll stumble through building bunk beds for my kids, or foundations for swimming pools, or reroofing a house, or putting in an irrigation system, or shelves for my kids, or a big pegboard for my sons’ Nerf guns. Just things like that. I try to do as much maintenance on my car and around my house as I can. I also recognize where my limitations are, when it’s time to call a real professional.

Do you find yourself trying to teach your sons those skills?

Yeah! Let’s say for like, car maintenance. I want them to know how to change the oil, and why is it important that there is oil, why it’s important to change it, and what’s involved in it. If they go to a Jiffy Lube and they try to sell them a flux capacitor or blinker fluid: don’t get fleeced. But I like to explain, “Here’s this tool. This is why it works there. This is why you would do it this way.” Sometimes they’re like, “That’s cool,” and other times they’re like, “Can I go inside now and play video games?” I try to pass on what I can, and they’re good kids. 

Clean Water University Expands to Three Days

The MWMC hosted its annual Clean Water University Field Trip Event earlier this month, expanding from two days to three days of activities this year! This allowed us to accommodate 11 schools and 650 students, along with approximately 100 teachers and chaperones. This moves us closer to our eventual goal of being able to include 50% of 5th grade classes in the Eugene-Springfield area in Clean Water University.

To help handle the additional workload, our staff have begun developing a network of volunteers to assist with running the activity booths. Several organizations assisted us this year, including City of Eugene Parks, City of Springfield Development and Public Works, Lane County Stormwater, Springfield Utility Board, Rainbow Water District, BRING Recycling, and the McKenzie River Trust.

Our mascot, Wally the Waterdrop, also made his in-person debut at the event. He was a big hit with the kids, and he got to take photos with them while staff taught about the water cycle.

Meet Barry Mays: Design & Construction Coordinator

How long have you worked for City of Springfield/MWMC?

I started June 1^st, 2006, and I’ve been out here ever since. Actually the first [job offer] I turned down because it didn’t fit me. It was more along the lines of inspections. I didn’t really have the credentials as an inspector that they were looking for. And then I got a call from Springfield. They’d talked to me before, and they had a position that was gonna be closing soon, essentially for a design and construction coordinator. This was more of a project manager role, and he wanted to know if I was interested in applying for it, because they’d liked talking to me the first time, and so I hurried and put together my application. They hired me and brought me out here.

What does a typical day on the job look like for you?

It’s great. I came from a construction background before I came to work here. I actually ran an estimating department for a construction company in Eugene, and before that I did estimating and project management for various projects all around Eugene and Springfield and so forth. Industrial facilities, medical facilities, lots and lots of schools, that kind of thing.

In the project management role here we start from the facilities plan, and we start with the project from ground zero all the way through construction. It’s really a dream job, because so many people in construction would love to be on a project at the very beginning and take it all the way to the end through the bidding and design all the way to the end of the project. By the time I get to the construction portion, I already know the project inside and out.

Is it rewarding to take a project from just an idea to a fully constructed facility?

Yeah, and what’s really cool is the input we have in the design. We talk to all of the plant staff, work with them closely, and find out what they need in the projects. We have some input in what actually goes into ‘em, like the type of equipment. One of the things that I look at, especially when we’re going through design, is the equipment, like pumps, for instance. We may be looking at four or five different pumps, and this pump is cheaper, but there’s more maintenance to it. This pump’s more expensive, but there’s less maintenance to it. The cheap pump never generally comes up to be the cheapest. That’s one of the things I’ve liked: I’ve never really gotten any pushback on going with some of the better, maybe a little more expensive, pieces of equipment because I can justify it through a life cycle cost analysis.

What’s your favorite part of working for MWMC?

My favorite part of this job is managing the construction jobs. That’s what I’ve done pretty much all my life. I’ve been in construction since I was 16. It’s been my life. You know, I started out building fences and stuff, and then worked my way up. What’s nice about this is that I’m here for the owner’s representation, and in doing so, I’m looking out for the owner and getting the best I can get for the owner. It’s sort of a flip from where I was before, and it’s much more enjoyable.

MWMC actually has been one of the most enjoyable careers. I got to do a lot of things and types of construction that I think are quite rare. When I was hired, I knew absolutely nothing about construction at a wastewater treatment plant, and it was a very steep learning curve. One thing we’ve learned is that when you come to a facility like this, even if you’re a seasoned project manager, it really takes you a couple of years before you can really get your feet wet because there’s so much different stuff going on here. You know, there’s mechanical stuff, there’s construction stuff, there’s biological stuff, it’s really diverse.

What have you seen change over the years at MWMC?

When we first moved out here, in July of 2006 I believe it was, there was a lot of people didn’t really work together well, between Springfield and Eugene. Less of a team atmosphere. Contentious, that’s the word. Since then, we’ve done a lot of stuff. John and I used to have barbecues every Friday, and invite somebody from the plant over, and the rule we had was you couldn’t talk work. So we got to know some of the plant staff, and I think over the years things got better. Then the whole team out here started to have big barbecues, which has stayed a tradition to this day. I think through that, and working with staff and saying, “Hey, we’re on your side,” this is much more of a team player organization than when I first came here. We work together so well now. It’s really changed and made a difference out here.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re off the clock?

I enjoy hunting and fishing, mostly in my younger years. I’m a bit older now. I was into archery hunting. Deer, elk. I went through a program with Oregon Department of Fishing and Wildlife and became an Oregon Master Hunter. I worked with biologists in Lane and Douglas County, doing emergency hunts where they basically had to cull the herds for one reason or another. Mostly, me and my hunting partner were able to get a lot of hunting opportunities because we were bow hunters. A lot of vineyards didn’t want people on their property with guns. They felt it was a safety hazard. Me and my buddy were Oregon Master Hunters, but we used bows, and they thought that was a great idea. It gave us great hunting opportunities. And then when we got older, me and my buddy sort of reverted back into our younger years of duck and goose hunting.

You’re approaching retirement. What are your plans when you’re done here?

We have some property just outside of town. I’m getting to the point where, as I get older, I’m like, “Do I really want to take care of all this property?” Me and my wife have both gotten tired of the ice storms and the rain and the cold. We have some close friends, which is my hunting partner, and they recently moved to Ocala, Florida, which we’ve been looking at too. We’re gonna get a place probably somewhere around there, just ‘cause it’s much warmer there. 

KLCC Interview with Todd Miller

Todd Miller, the MWMC's Policy and Planning Supervisor, recently gave an interview on KLCC's Oregon on the Record to talk about our upcoming Class A Recycled Water project. He answered questions about the benefits of recycled water and what the MWMC's future plans look like with it as a community resource. Click the button below to listen to the interview, which begins around the 9-minute mark.

Pollution Solutions

Pharmaceuticals are some of the most difficult pollutants to remove from water, and they can have harmful effects on aquatic life. Because their chemical structures are so widely different, wastewater treatment plants usually can't effectively remove the microscopic traces of pharmaceutical pollution. That's why it is vital for everyone to dispose of old or unneeded medications properly: by taking them to a local pharmacy. Never flush medications down the toilet!

Speaking of things you can't flush, there are lots things that get put down toilets that shouldn't be there. Wipes, paper towels, hygiene products, and all other kinds of trash should be disposed of in a garbage can. Toilets shouldn't be treated like they're trash cans, because doing so can damage them, your pipes, and wastewater infrastructure.

Toilets are only meant to handle 3 things being flushed: pee, poop, and toilet paper. In the wastewater industry, we refer to these as the Three P's! Only flushing the Three P's helps to minimize clogs and keep your wastewater pipes flowing.