SLVWD Behind the Scenes:

A Small Engineering Team Taking Big Steps Forward

February 15, 2022

Mark Dolson

It’s often easy for SLVWD ratepayers to take their ready access to high-quality water for granted. To better appreciate how the District maintains this high level of service, it can be revealing to take a peek at the internal workings of individual District departments. The District’s Engineering team is a case in point.

The actual physical delivery of water to the District’s customers is the joint responsibility of the District’s Engineering and Operations teams. Operations deals with essential day-to-day concerns (operating and maintaining the water system, producing water, and ensuring water quality) whereas Engineering is responsible for the new infrastructure projects that ultimately define the District’s capabilities.

With the support of the Board, the District has recently substantially strengthened its Engineering team which now consists of Josh Wolff (hired away from a Bay Area engineering firm in January, 2021 to be the new District Engineer and team lead, filling a major void), Joel Scianna (Assistant Engineer), and Weston Locke (the District’s new GIS/CAD Specialist).

With such a small team, the District is heavily dependent on outside companies to perform most of its infrastructure design, construction, and construction management. Nevertheless, improving the capabilities and processes of the Engineering team can still ultimately save the District a lot of money, and developments over the past year are beginning to bear this out.

The team recently released a Standards Specifications document which provides standard drawings, specifications, and tests for all manner of routine installations (e.g., fire hydrants). This was a year-long undertaking that addressed a long-standing deficiency in the District’s operations. The team similarly set about developing a Computer Aided Design (CAD) library that allows them to design more efficiently and thereby perform more work in-house thus enabling the District, in some situations, to avoid the expense of an engineering consulting firm for the initial design phase of a project. Yet another major initiative focuses on improving the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) so that Staff can more easily locate facilities in the field (e.g., when they have become obscured by undergrowth).

The team has also dramatically expanded the range and quality of the bids it receives from outside companies. In the past, the District often found itself with only a few bids to choose between for each new contract. The new and improved process involves reaching out to industry contacts and getting many more well-qualified companies to respond. In addition, the District Engineer is working to develop good relationships with his counterparts working for the County, the City of Scotts Valley, and Caltrans so that potential issues can be resolved more efficiently and cost-effectively.

All of this progress notwithstanding, SLVWD remains a small District of 35 employees with a lot of challenges, including 190 miles of mainline pipe and nearly 50 storage tanks, much of which needs repair or replacement due to age. In addition, the District must contend with significant budget constraints which impact its ability to make key infrastructure investments and to continue to attract top talent. It is heartening, though, to see the advances that the District’s Engineering team has made over the past year, and this kind of exemplary engagement bodes well for the District as a whole.