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Keeping Metropolitan’s Employees Safe on the Job
Metropolitan staff move a tunnel-cleaning machine into one of the Colorado River Aqueduct tunnels during a shutdown.
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Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.
18 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | June 2020
Dan Guillory: I’m a senior water industry manager with over 30 years of experience in developing and managing programs in the water industry, specifically in the environmental health and safety field. I’m currently responsible for corporatewide management of environmental health and safety at Metropolitan. Prior to coming to Metropolitan, I was a consulting engineer, responsible for remediating contaminated properties throughout the western United States. I’ve been involved in developing, designing, and managing Metropolitan’s environmental and safety programs for about 30 years, and my position today is section manager for operational safety and regulatory services. Mickey Chaudhuri: I have about 24 years in the water and environmental field and am currently the assistant chief of operations at Metropolitan. Our Water System Operations Group consists of about 950 employees, which is about half the agency’s total workforce. We’re responsible for operating and maintaining our large conveyance, treatment, and distribution facilities; planning and scheduling water deliveries and power operations; and ensuring compliance municipalwaterleader.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF METROPOLITAN.
he Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a cooperative public agency that provides water to 26 member agencies that serve about 19 million people across a densely populated 5,200‑square-mile service area in Southern California. Its facilities include some of the largest treatment plants in the country, reservoirs, hundreds of miles of large pipeline, and several hydroelectric plants. It also operates the Colorado River Aqueduct, which brings water from Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border over 240 miles to western Riverside County. Operating and maintaining these immense facilities have inherent hazards associated with them, and to ensure that Metropolitan’s employees stay safe and healthy, the agency has a well-developed operational safety program. In this interview, Mickey Chaudhuri, Metropolitan’s assistant chief of operations, and Dan Guillory, the section manager for operational safety and regulatory services, tell Municipal Water Leader about how the agency proactively and cooperatively works with its employees to maintain a high standard of safety.
