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Eastern Municipal Water District's Full-Spectrum Safety Program
The Riverside County landscape from the air.
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astern Municipal Water District (EMWD) provides water, wastewater, and recycled water services to nearly 900,000 residents of a rapidly growing area in Riverside County, California. Its significant size and wide variety of activities mean that its more than 600 employees are exposed to a number of on-the-job hazards, from heat to high-voltage electricity to work in confined spaces. To address this, EMWD has a well-developed safety, risk, and emergency management system that includes training, risk reporting, and the identification of all risks associated with its equipment. In this interview, EMWD General Manager Paul Jones and Director of Safety, Risk and Emergency Management Doug Hefley tell Municipal Water Leader about the various aspects of EMWD’s safety programs.
EMWD for 30 years. I started in the operations division, and about 18 years ago, I began to focus on the safety and risk management division and started obtaining education in that field. I have a bachelor’s degree in business administration and criminal justice and have added extensive training in behavioral safety and risk management through the years, including a certification in emergency management. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about EMWD.
Doug Hefley: I am currently EMWD’s director of safety, risk, and emergency management and have been with
Municipal Water Leader: What are the primary areas of safety concern for a municipal water district like EMWD?
Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.
34 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | July/August 2020
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PHOTO COURTESY OF LAKE PERRIS.
Paul Jones: I am the general manager of EMWD and have been here since July 2011. Previously, I was the general manager of Irvine Ranch Water District in Orange County for 12 years. I have about 28 years of experience in the water and engineering fields in both the public and private sectors. My career has focused on water resource project development, special district management, and related subjects. I am a civil engineer by training, having studied at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona, and I am a licensed professional engineer in the state of California.
Paul Jones: EMWD is a municipal water, wastewater, and recycled water service provider. We serve close to 900,000 residents of the southwestern portion of Riverside County in Southern California. The 555‑square-mile service area encompasses seven cities as well as unincorporated county areas. We serve about 150,000 water connections, approximately 246,000 sewer connections, and nearly 600 recycled water service connections. We have a little over 600 employees. We are a full-service retail and wholesale utility service provider and have a diverse residential, commercial, and production agriculture customer base. This part of Southern California is a high-growth area. We have been growing at a rate of approximately 4,200 equivalent dwelling units a year, which means we are adding the equivalent of a small city to our service area annually. As a result, we have a substantial number of capital improvement projects, with about 30 construction projects active right now. That capital program is valued at about $472 million through the year 2024.
