Municipal Water Leader September 2021 by Water Strategies

Volume 8 Issue 8

September 2021

Terry Bower: The Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Water Studies Certification Program

July/August 2015 Volume 1 Issue 1

Building Resiliency Into Southern California’s Water Future: An Interview With Jeffrey Kightlinger

Municipal Water Leader magazine honors Mr. Jeff Kightlinger for his service as general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and for his tremendous leadership and dedication to water solutions throughout the western United States. Over his 25 years at MWD, he secured water not only for the agency, but for California as a whole. Known for his personable nature, exceptional intelligence, and willingness to work with others, he is respected by all on the Colorado River and in the halls of Congress. An uncountable number of water-related conversations have included the question, “What did Jeff say about that?” Proclaimed by his peers to be a Water Buffalo in the truest sense, Mr. Kightlinger is, and will always be, a giant in western water.

We wish Mr. Kightlinger happiness and great success in his future endeavors and look forward to writing about his next achievements!

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Terry Bower: The Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Water Studies Certification Program

Contents

September 2021 Volume 8, Issue 8 5 E ducation, Research, and Technology By Kris Polly 8 Terry Bower: The Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Water Studies Certification Program 14 D r. Elizabeth McVicker on Her Water Law Course

18 D r. Matt Makley: Teaching the History of Western Water to Inform Future Problem Solvers 22 J ay Jasperse and Marty Ralph: Piloting Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations at Lake Mendocino 30 M ike Pearce: Innovating Phosphorous Out of Water Supplies at SePRO 39 JOB LISTINGS

Municipal Water Leader is published 10 times a year with combined issues for July/August and November/December by

an American company established in 2009.

STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer Caroline Polly, Production Assistant and Social Media Coordinator Cassandra Leonard, Staff Assistant Milo Schmitt, Media Intern SUBMISSIONS: Municipal Water Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions; the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or municipal.water.leader@waterstrategies.com. ADVERTISING: Municipal Water Leader accepts half-page and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or kris.polly@waterstrategies.com. CIRCULATION: Municipal Water Leader is distributed to all drinking water and wastewater entities with annual budgets or sales of $10 million per year or greater as well as to members of Congress and committee staff and advertising sponsors. For address corrections or additions, or if you would prefer to receive Municipal Water Leader in electronic form, please contact us at admin@waterstrategies.com. Copyright © 2021 Water Strategies LLC. Municipal Water Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Municipal Water Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Municipal Water Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Municipal Water Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised. @MuniWaterLeader

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Coming soon in Municipal Water Leader: October: Jenna Covington of the North Texas Municipal Water District Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

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COVER PHOTO:

Terry Bower, Associate Vice President of Innovative and Lifelong Learning, The Metropolitan State University of Denver. Photo courtesy of MSU Denver.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF MSU DENVER.

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Education, Research, and Technology By Kris Polly

n the water industry, everything is connected. Ecosystems, hydrology, human activity and history, and legal arrangements all interact to create the distinctive set of water supplies, rights, and usage patterns of each place. With that in mind, constant knowledge-building is a must for water professionals. This month, we bring you the story of one educational effort that seeks to meet that need. The Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) has put together a three-course, online-only Water Studies certificate program, intended primarily for working professionals and other nontraditional students. With courses titled Water Law, Colorado Water and the American West, and U.S. Water Concerns, the program provides a broad background in water that will be useful to professionals in many fields. Not only has the university created a course for water professionals, it is also interested in working directly with municipal water agencies and utilities to create programs responding to their needs. In our cover interview, Terry Bower, MSU Denver’s associate vice president of innovative and lifelong learning, introduces the Water Studies program. We also have interviews with the professors of two of its three courses: Elizabeth McVicker, who teaches Water Law, and Matt Makley, who teaches Colorado Water and the American West.

We also bring you a story about a groundbreaking effort to pilot forecast-informed reservoir operations (FIRO) at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Mendocino reservoir in Northern California, which is operated for water conservation and water supply purposes by Sonoma Water. Jay Jasperse of Sonoma Water and Dr. F. Martin “Marty” Ralph of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography tell us about the pilot and how FIRO can help store additional water while still ensuring safe dam operations. Finally, we speak with Mike Pearce of SePRO about the new EutroSORB phosphorus filtration bags. These easy-todeploy bags help prevent eutrophication in streams, canals, storm water drains, and other water bodies and can be safely discarded after use. Water professionals are always seeking to better understand water supplies and the technology that that can help them better manage this precious resource. Educational programs, important research programs, and the development of new technology are all ways to further this goal. M Kris Polly is the editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and the president and CEO of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He can be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Terry Bower: The Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Water Studies Certification Program

The Colorado River.

n 2018, the Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) developed an online Water Studies certificate program for water professionals and those interested in learning more about water. The program comprises three courses, each in a convenient self-paced online format: Water Law, U.S. Water Concerns, and Colorado Water and the American West. Participants can take all three courses and earn a certificate or take just one or two courses if they prefer. In this interview, Terry Bower, MSU Denver’s associate vice president of innovative and lifelong learning, tells us about the certificate program’s genesis. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell our readers about your background.

8 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about MSU Denver. Terry Bower: MSU Denver is a public university with approximately 20,000 students. We offer bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, and certificates. MSU Denver is a Hispanicserving institution. Nearly half our students are students of color, and over half are first-generation college students. Close to 80 percent of our students are working while they’re pursuing their education. We have 95 majors and 8 graduate programs. We have a large economic effect on Denver and the state of Colorado, because the vast majority of our graduates stay in Colorado after they graduate and contribute to the local economy. We share a downtown campus with two other higher education institutions, the Community College of Denver and the University of Colorado Denver, and the campus is vibrant. What I love the most about our campus is that it reminds me of being in New York; it is bustling with people of all ages, colors, and backgrounds. It’s a really an exciting place to be. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell our readers about your water certificate program, how it started, and what it does. Terry Bower: It started with my passion for water. Growing up in DC, I was heavily involved with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, first as a high schooler, when I participated in municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MSU DENVER.

Terry Bower: I grew up in Washington, DC. I went to Emory University for my undergraduate degree in English and to Arizona State University (ASU) for my graduate degree in social work. Along the way, I continued to move back and forth from the East Coast to the West, exploring the best that each has to offer. The majority of my professional career has been in communications or higher education. I developed my passion for communications from my father, who ran a DC-based ad agency for over 40 years. I developed my passion for higher education while working at the George Washington University (GWU), where I created corporate training programs, including GWU’s first Arabic interpretation program, which I created right after 9/11. My husband and I moved to Denver in 2011, and after a stint with the mayor’s office, I started at MSU

Denver in 2017, building continuing education and alternative credential programs for the community.

ADVERTISEMENT field trips, and later as a member and a volunteer. These experiences taught me about the preciousness of water. When I came to MSU Denver, I learned about our One World One Water Center (OWOW) and Tom Cech, its director. Upon discovering this gem, I knew I wanted to create something that would help folks understand more about water—water issues and concerns, water rights, and sustainability—in a way that would have real-world applications. Tom and I met several times and then met with members of his advisory board to talk about what a professional development certificate in water might look like. I recall one advisory board member who worked at a law firm with a water practice saying, “People apply to our firm all the time without knowing the fundamentals of water. We can’t hire them. We really need folks to have this foundational knowledge.” We understood that our target audience would be busy professionals, so we developed the courses in a convenient, self-paced online format to allow individuals to proceed through the course at their own pace. Each course can be completed in 1 month, and all three courses can be completed in a semester. The program launched in 2018 with much success, and our participants include water commissioners and employees of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and BNSF Railway, just to name a few examples. We attract professionals from across the country. Municipal Water Leader: The class is not solely Colorado focused, correct? Terry Bower: No. The certificate focuses on water concerns, law, and rights across the United States. The content applies to anyone currently working in a water industry or who wants to learn more about water. We offer one class called Colorado Water and the American West that is more specific to the western part of the United States; this is just a part of the certificate. Municipal Water Leader: How long does the self-paced online course usually take, and what kind of interactions do the students have with the professors? Terry Bower: Each course runs for 4 weeks, and students can have as much interaction with the instructors as they want. The course is designed in a self-paced online format to allow students maximum flexibility. The instructors have a welcome video at the beginning of their classes in which they introduce themselves and the topics and goals of the class. They also have a short video at the beginning of each module in which they lay out the concepts and goals for each section of the course. Students decide on the level of engagement they want to have with the content and with the instructor. Some students go through the courses quickly and do not want or need additional engagement with the instructors. Some students prefer deeper engagement with instructors and have many questions; our expert faculty is there to support each student. municipalwaterleader.com

An MSU Denver instructor with traditional students visits a Colorado river.

Municipal Water Leader: What can you tell us about the professors teaching the courses? Terry Bower: Dr. Elizabeth McVicker teaches Water Law. She is a water attorney and serves on the boards of three water-related Colorado entities: the Center of Colorado Water Conservancy District, the Headwaters of the South Platte Water Enterprise, and the Coalition of the Upper South Platte. She serves as a guest speaker, panelist, and media expert for water-related events and was instrumental in developing the OWOW and the water service curriculum. She has a PhD in Spanish and a JD from the University of Denver. She teaches business ethics and sustainability courses. Dr. Matt Makley teaches Colorado Water and the American West. He is a professor of history at MSU Denver, where he has taught for almost 15 years. Previously, he taught at ASU, where he earned a PhD in Native American history and the history of the American West. The University of Nevada Press published Makley’s coauthored book, Cave Rock: Climbers, Courts, and a Washoe Indian Sacred Place, in 2010. His more recent book, The Small Shall Be Strong: A History of Lake Tahoe’s Washoe Indians, was published in 2018. Dr. Randi Brazeau, PE, teaches U.S. Water Concerns. She received her BS and ME degrees in civil engineering at the University of Florida. After working as an engineering analyst with Kimley-Horn and Associates for 2 years, she completed a PhD in civil engineering and environmental water resources from Virginia Tech under Dr. Marc Edwards. She is an associate professor in the department of earth and atmospheric sciences at MSU Denver, where she has been since 2012. All three professors are top faculty at MSU Denver, are incredibly popular with their students, and are very approachable. Anyone can go to our website (www.msudenver.edu/water-studies-online) to see the professors’ biographies as well as a short video of each of them introducing their respective classes. We added this information to our website to help potential students better understand the instructors and what the class will feel like. September 2021 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

ADVERTISEMENT Municipal Water Leader: What is the cost of the certificate program? Terry Bower: The cost of each class is $425. Students can take any one of the courses or they can take all three and receive a completion certificate cobranded by the university and the OWOW. When students successfully pass a course, they receive a digital badge, which reflects the competencies that they have gained; this badge can be shared on LinkedIn or a résumé and can easily be shared with an employer. We also offer a 30‑minute advising session with Tom Cech, our top water expert, for anyone who is interested in starting the courses but has questions about the field and job opportunities in water. Municipal Water Leader: How many students have you had thus far?

the first course, Principles of Writing, launches this fall. The instructor for this course has an asset-based approach to teaching writing and really works with her students to leverage their strengths and develop any weak points. The second course is Writing for Digital Media. It covers writing for websites, social media, e-mails, etc. It focuses on the different formats used when writing for digital media as well as audience perspectives. The final course is Writing for the Professions. This course builds on the first two to help individuals write for different audiences in different business formats, such as decision memos and reports. All three courses are taught by our expert writing faculty. Municipal Water Leader: Are you open to speaking with municipal water managers and other managers who may have specific training needs?

Terry Bower: We have about 20 students each term, and there have been about 80 so far.

Terry Bower: Absolutely; they should contact me. We love creating customized content that helps employers and employees succeed.

Municipal Water Leader: How have you changed and improved the program since launching it?

Municipal Water Leader: What is your message to municipal water managers and employees?

Terry Bower: We changed the length of the self-paced online courses from one semester to 1 month, based on feedback from students; one semester was too long for many students. We’ve also created more engaging activities for the courses. For example, we have created scenario-based learning activities and increased simulated discussion and feedback.

Terry Bower: We know about water scarcity and the huge environmental changes we are living through—extreme weather, fires, and drought are just some examples. The best thing we can do is to help water professionals and those interested in water get up to speed on the fundamentals of water: what the issues are, what the laws are, the role of water rights, and the specific national and global challenges that affect our water supply now and will continue to do so in the future. We must make informed decisions, and water is complex. Anyone can benefit from this certificate, whether to move forward in their current career, to pursue a new career, or just to become better-educated citizens so that they can be advocates for solutions to our water challenges. M

Municipal Water Leader: Have you received feedback from employers about the courses? Terry Bower: We have not received direct feedback from employers, but we have feedback from students. However, it is worth noting that employers frequently pay for our students to take the courses, so we can infer that they must be pleased with the competencies that their employees are gaining. Municipal Water Leader: Would you tell us about some of the other courses you are developing that might be of interest to the water sector?

10 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

Visit the Water Studies online certificate program’s webpage here.

Terry Bower is the associate vice president of innovative and lifelong learning at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. For more information, visit www.msudenver.edu/water-studies-online/. municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MSU DENVER.

Terry Bower: We are now developing a professional writing certificate program that will also involve three 1‑month courses, in the same self-paced online format as the water courses. The first course, Principles of Writing, launches this fall! The origin of this certificate was my discussions with employers. When I ask employers what their pain points are when it comes to training and upskilling their employees, they almost always say writing. We didn’t want to ask working professionals to drop into a series of college-level courses; rather, we wanted to create customized writing courses for professionals in a convenient, online format. The courses are sequenced; as I mentioned,

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Fall 2021 Course Schedule: • September: U.S. Water Concerns • October: Water Law • November: Colorado Water and the American West

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Dr. Elizabeth McVicker on Her Water Law Course

The Colorado River near Grand Junction, Colorado.

r. Elizabeth McVicker’s Water Law course is one of the three that make up the Water Studies certificate program at the Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver). It takes a broad view of hydrology, history, and legal doctrine and gives students a fundamental understanding of water law in the West, including the prior appropriation principle. In this interview, Dr. McVicker tells us about her background and how she came to teach this class. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background.

14 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

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PHOTO COURTESY OF RENNETT STOWE.

Elizabeth McVicker: I’m a Colorado native. My mother’s family is from Texas, and that is where I went to high school and college. My father, Roy McVicker, was an attorney and was a Colorado state senator and a U.S. congressman from Colorado during the 1950s and 1960s. He was a state senator from 1954 to 1964 and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1964 to 1966. He was a Democrat and rode Lyndon Johnson’s coattails to Washington. He represented the fourth district, which at the time was called the donut district and included all the counties around the city and county of Denver. He then came back and ended up heading up continental research for part of the administration outreach into Mexico and Central America. He was in love with the Rocky Mountains, so I spent my childhood going to the Rocky Mountains with my dad; listening to Beethoven;

and walking and going fishing on the Arkansas River, the South Platte River, and the tributaries of the Colorado River. After getting a master’s from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from New York University in Spanish, I came back to Colorado and taught language courses at the University of Denver (DU) and the University of Colorado. Because my father and my grandfather from Texas had been attorneys, my husband suggested I try law school. I decided to go to the DU College of Law, where I got a chancellor scholarship in the public interest because of my interest in environmental matters. Our water resources here at the top of the world are limited. In Colorado, every drop of water flows out of our state, and we have obligations to deliver water to other states under 19 different compacts. The Colorado River is on everyone’s mind right now because of the aridification of the Southwest. About 40 million people in this region rely on the river’s limited supplies. That really drove me to learn about the intricacies of Colorado water law. The prior appropriation doctrine is also known as the Colorado doctrine, and it derives from miners’ law and the experience of the California gold rush of 1849 and the Colorado gold rush of 1859. I also believe in collaboration. I did a lot of mediation right out of law school. It didn’t take me long to realize that repeating the water wars that happened in Colorado in the 1800s, in which people lost their lives, was not an option in the context of the burgeoning population of

ADVERTISEMENT today’s Colorado. I was fortunate to study water law at the DU College of Law with John Carver, who was the U.S. secretary of the interior under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He pushed me to delve further into water rights, water law, water obligations, and the underlying importance of collaboration. In the early 1980s, my husband and I bought some land in Park County at about 10,000 feet on the tributaries of the South Fork of the South Platte. We had the opportunity to buy some water rights and were up against a wealthy developer by the name of Pat Broe. It taught me a lot about how prepared you have to be if you’re going to fight over water instead of seeing it as a public resource. In that water fight with Mr. Broe, I got to know a managing partner at Holland & Hart by the name of Anne Castle, who was later the deputy secretary of the interior in the Obama administration under Ken Salazar and is now a fellow with the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources Energy and the Environment Water Research Institute. She has been generous with her time in helping me as a coteacher. Municipal Water Leader: How did you start teaching as part of the Water Studies certificate program? Elizabeth McVicker: I’ve been teaching different courses online since 2001, and I began teaching this Water Law class when MSU Denver received a generous gift to start a water studies program for undergraduate students. I had the good fortune of being instrumental in forming the One World One Water Center (OWOW) and coming up with the curriculum for the minor there, and of course I insisted we have a Colorado water law class. MSU Denver does offer a water law class through the atmospheric environmental studies program, but water law up to about the 100th meridian is based on riparian rights, which are based on proximity to a stream or body of water, while beyond the 100th meridian, it is based on prior appropriation. Historically, it became obvious that there was no way riparian rights were going to work past the 100th meridian. The Colorado doctrine is a repudiation of riparianism. Terry Bower decided to move forward with this program because the OWOW was getting so many requests for a water certificate program that was not tied to an undergraduate studies program.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MSU DENVER.

Municipal Water Leader: What is the name of your course? Elizabeth McVicker: It is called Water Law, but it is focused on Colorado water law. We start the class with the broad context of hydrology. Another class in this program digs deeper into the science, but I set the stage for that. We look at geology, hydrology, history, and riparianism in order to compare and contrast it with the Colorado doctrine. People wonder what their everyday actions have to do with whether or not somebody in California is going to be municipalwaterleader.com

able to grow strawberries, whether the town of Fountain is going to have to cut off taps because there’s no water, why Bloomfield is now charging $30,000 for a tap, or why irrigators in the lower South Platte are angry because Colorado passed a law that allows for rain barrels. Educating our citizens is key. People are intimidated by the idea of prior appropriation and even the word law. This certification program is designed to help. The Center for Teaching and Learning Design at MSU Denver helped me bring together the historical, geological, and hydrological viewpoints and to focus on the basics of tributary and nontributary water, the history of the Colorado doctrine, the interstate compacts we have entered into over the years, and the role of ethics. Municipal Water Leader: What kinds of students take this course? Elizabeth McVicker: Many different kinds. We have had women from smaller towns in Colorado who have come to study and then decided they were going to serve on the water board of Castle Rock or Evergreen. A water sommelier actually took this class while starting up a business. We had someone from Hawaii who was concerned with the U.S. Supreme Court case County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, which dealt with groundwater injection. She took this class so that she could push that Supreme Court case forward as an activist. We have had students from the U.S. Forest Service and from a Colorado-based organization called the Coalition of the Upper South Platte, which was formed to protect the South Platte River from runoff caused by the 2002 Haman fire and by subsequent fires. My class is focused on Colorado water law, the western United States, California, Arizona, and Texas, and it is for developers, farmers, and anyone who turns the tap on and hopes to have water come out. Municipal Water Leader: What is the format of the course? Elizabeth McVicker: It is all online. The course is self paced, so somebody could do it in a week or in 4 weeks. We used to offer it over the course of 15 weeks, but since it is a pass/fail course that attracts mostly professionals, I would lose some of my students over that time. There is a review section that helps the students go over the readings. I provide optional discussion questions. The class also provides guidance for further resources students may want to consult. Colorado has organizations such as Water Education Colorado and the American Water Resources Association, for instance. M Dr. Elizabeth McVicker is a professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. She can be contacted at emcvicke@msudenver.edu.

September 2021 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Dr. Matt Makley: Teaching the History of Western Water to Inform Future Problem Solvers

The distinctive “bathtub ring” pattern left by dropping water levels in Lake Mead.

or many people, the history of water in the West centers on early-20th-century events like the construction of Hoover Dam and the California water wars. In fact, that history goes back to the times when Native Americans were the only residents of what is now the western United States. The full scope of that history, in all its social, political, and legal detail, is at the heart of the courses Professor Matt Makley teaches at the Metropolitan State University of Denver. In this conversation, Dr. Makley tells Municipal Water Leader about this fascinating history and its continuing importance. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background.

18 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

Municipal Water Leader: What is the name of the course you teach? Matt Makley: Colorado Water and the American West. I made the title general, because I wanted the class to be about Colorado water, but I also wanted to frame it within the larger context of the West. There is a unit in the course that deals with Los Angeles water as a case study. We look at the history of the Owens River Valley all the way back to the era when it was primarily inhabited by the Northern municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF CONOR REES.

Matt Makley: I was born and raised in California in the Lake Tahoe region. I moved throughout little farming communities in the Sierra Nevada, such as Minden, Nevada. I went to Northern California for a while, and then my studies took me to Arizona, where I got a PhD at Arizona State University in American Indian history. I studied with a gentleman named Peter Iverson, who unfortunately passed away this past spring. He was a gracious man who worked for most of his professional life with the Navajo, or Diné. He would take students up to Diné country, and we’d spend time with Navajo

families and get to know the people and the landscape. That process triggered an interest in water for me. My specialty is Native American history, but I’m particularly interested in the water aspects of that history. I credit Peter for getting me started on that path. He had us read Daniel McCool’s books on Indian water law. Today, with the drought we’re experiencing in the West, there’s a big need for conversations between First Nations and the representatives of the governing structure of the water management system. The latter have a lot to learn from the people who’ve been here the longest. My professional expertise is in modern Indian history, which has a lot of law ingrained in it, and I’ve been training myself on the water side for the last decade or so.

ADVERTISEMENT Paiutes. Anthropologists have been able to establish that they practiced what we might call protohorticulture. They would steer the water to feed the grasses, seeds, and crops that were important to them. That is not something that makes a mark in the archaeological record. It makes me wonder how many other indigenous people did that. We then look at the farmers in the Owens River Valley and how William Mulholland and Los Angeles came up there and got all the water rights. Then we compare that history to how Denver’s water system came into existence. It’s fun to compare western cities, underscoring the reality that, as Edward Abbey said in his book Desert Solitaire, it’s not that there’s not enough water where we’re building, it’s that we’re trying to build where there’s not enough water. Municipal Water Leader: You start out at the very beginning and you come into modern times, correct? Matt Makley: Yes. I’m deliberate about starting with the pre-European native experience of water. We look at a couple of case studies, one of which centers on Ancestral Pueblo people. Then, we get into the early mining period in Colorado. It’s critical to establish the contextual information about how the law of prior appropriation was born in Colorado. The class focuses a lot on prior appropriation, and once we have that idea in place, we start to look at the relationship between the federal government and western water users in creating our shared society. We do a case study of the massive tunnel built off the Gunnison River in the Black Canyon. We also look at Hoover Dam and the creation of the western water system. We come as close to the present day as we can. We deal a little bit with transbasin diversions—for example, the removal of water from the western slope of the Rockies, which really belongs in the Colorado watershed, and its transport to reservoirs east of the Rockies, where it can support the massive populations of eastern Colorado. We also look at the Ute Water Settlement Act, which started in the 1980s and continued into the 2000s. It is a recognition of native water rights based on an early 1900s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that grants Native American tribes prior appropriation through the Winters Doctrine.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MATT MAKLEY AND MSU DENVER.

Municipal Water Leader: How long have you been teaching this course? Matt Makley: It started about 7 years ago. We turned it into this self-paced online course. The class and this certificate program have been attracting wonderful minds. The classes are full of people who have a lot of experience in western water; I learn from them, and they talk to and engage with one another through a chat function. I hope that my passion for stewardship comes through. Tom Cech at the One World One Water Center wants that to be at the heart of what we’re doing at this unique university, which has a municipalwaterleader.com

Chalk Creek, which drains the Collegiate Peaks in Colorado.

diverse student population with a lot of nontraditional and first-generation students. These will be the people who help solve our water problems over the next few decades. One of the primary points to address are the problems we face today on the Colorado Plateau. Over 40 million people are dependent on water from the Colorado River, and right now, Lake Mead and Lake Powell are lower than they’ve ever been. We’re going to have to have difficult conversations about curtailment. I’m passionate about saying, “Let’s open up that conversation.” We need all interested groups and water users to take part, especially our native communities, because they have a connection to this place that goes back much further than that of nonnatives. If we take the time to listen, they can talk to us about the cycles of drought and how their ancestors dealt with them. We have conservationists, recreationalists, farmers, ranchers, and mining interests all in the same room. It’s a rich dialogue, and that’s going to be the path forward for us. M Dr. Matt Makley is a professor in the department of history at Metropolitan State University of Denver. He can be contacted at mmakley@msudenver.edu or (303) 615‑0793.

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Jay Jasperse and Marty Ralph: Piloting Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations at Lake Mendocino

A panorama of Lake Mendocino in Northern California.

any western reservoirs are operated under strict water level rules that are intended to ensure that they have the necessary capacity to control storm water and prevent floods. However, it stands to reason that as our understanding of and capacity to forecast those storms improves, those long-standing rules can be made more responsive to actual conditions, with the result that more water can be stored for use during dry periods. The effort to do this is known as forecastinformed reservoir operations (FIRO). One groundbreaking FIRO effort occurred at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Mendocino reservoir, which is operated for water conservation and water supply purposes by Sonoma Water. In this interview, Jay Jasperse of Sonoma Water and Dr. F. Martin “Marty” Ralph of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E) at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) tell us about the grassroots beginnings of their cooperation, the new management practices being implemented based on their project, and how the process is creating a better model for the future. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions.

22 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

Marty Ralph: I am a meteorologist by training, but I have spent time around hydrologists, so in a way, I’m a hydro meteorologist. After working at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for 21 years in Boulder, Colorado, I moved to UCSD in 2013 to build its capabilities to work on Western water-related challenges. Put simply, my job as a scientist is to help improve weather forecasts. I do that by understanding the storms that produce the rain that becomes our water supply or creates floods. I founded the CW3E at UCSD’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography to pursue this work. Scripps is a worldwide leader in oceanographic science and climate science, and it is the perfect home for our new center, which will build on its deep knowledge of ocean and climate and culture of linking science to solutions. Working with Jay at Sonoma Water and with the Army Corps to explore the possibility of using forecasts to help reservoir operators at Sonoma Water’s facilities was one of the sentinel projects that launched CW3E. Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are another major focus of our center. municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONOMA WATER.

Jay Jasperse: I am the chief engineer and director of groundwater management at Sonoma Water, where I oversee engineering, capital projects, and water resources planning. I am also the cochair, along with Marty, of the Lake Mendocino FIRO steering committee. Marty and I helped initiate the project approximately 6 years ago.

Sonoma Water is a California special act district that provides water supply, flood control, and wastewater services to Sonoma County and other parts of the northern Bay Area. Among our responsibilities is water resource management. We are the local sponsor of the federal projects that are owned and operated by the Army Corps on the Russian River in Northern California. One of those federal projects is Lake Mendocino, which is the site of our FIRO project. The Army Corps’ San Francisco District manages the reservoir’s flood risk, and Sonoma Water operates it for water conservation and water supply purposes.

ADVERTISEMENT Municipal Water Leader: When did the FIRO concept become viable and why? Was it because of a better understanding of the AR phenomenon? Jay Jasperse: Marty and I started working together on hydrometeorological programs when he was at NOAA. It soon became clear that ARs were fundamental to our operations and critical to effective water management and operations. As it became clear that ARs were the signature precipitation event that ought to drive water management decisions, Sonoma Water made it a priority to better understand them and to look for ways to better manage both the flood control and the water supply issues that these extreme events produce. Several components of the Army Corps were involved in this effort. Initially, we worked with the Lake Mendocino reservoir operators in the Army Corps’ San Francisco District. However, the involvement expanded to other offices of the agency. Three of NOAA’s line offices—the National Weather Service, the Office of Atmospheric Research, and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)—were key partners. The NMFS helped us evaluate the potential benefits of FIRO for ecosystems and species, especially the salmonid species in the Russian River system. The California Department of Water Resources and the state climatologist, Mike Anderson, have also been partners from the beginning of this endeavor. We also engaged with the scientists who work on climate and hydrology issues at the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Reclamation. Marty Ralph: Several advances contributed to the development of FIRO at Lake Mendocino. Around 2008, there was a recognition that action was needed to help imperiled salmon populations recover. There were also several years of intensive research on extreme weather on the West Coast. Specifically, in the 2010–2012 time frame, there was a recognition that AR storms were the key to West Coast water supply and flooding. In 2013, I started the CW3E and was able to build on Scripps’s reputation and capabilities to work with the Army Corps and Sonoma Water to develop the FIRO concept and the resources it would require. To add two other dimensions, Sonoma Water has a history of innovation. It was already working with scientists to understand the hydrology and the geology of the watershed. In its early days, a lot of people were skeptical of this idea, because precipitation forecasts were not considered reliable. However, we believed that a better understanding of AR events in the West could help to manage water flows throughout the region. The scope of effort and the technical steps required to develop and evaluate FIRO were laid out in 2014–2015 in the form of a work plan representing the technical requirements and strategies. Major funding to pursue parts of the work plan was provided beginning in October 2015. Finally, in 2016, the Army Corps’ engineering manual was revised for the first time, municipalwaterleader.com

incorporating the option for Sonoma Water to consider forecasts in the day-to-day operations of the reservoir. Municipal Water Leader: Why was Lake Mendocino the reservoir where FIRO was piloted? Marty Ralph: In 2012, the Army Corps released water from Lake Mendocino in the wintertime, as it is mandated to do. After this release, we experienced one of the driest periods on record over a span of 14 months. Some key people in the Army Corps, Marty, and I looked at that experience and wondered whether there was something we could have done to improve the outcome. Was there information that we could have brought to bear on our management decisions? It became clear that if forecasts of ARs had been accurate enough, the Army Corps could have made an active decision to hold back some of the water that was released based on dated rule curve requirements. If a big AR storm that threatened to create a flood had approached, there would have been time to release it. Jay Jasperse: One of the key factors that motivated work on Lake Mendocino was a sharp reduction of inflows into it from a nearby river. The reservoir’s water supply operations have been especially difficult since around 2006, when diversions from the nearby Eel River into the reservoir were significantly reduced. Water has been diverted from the Eel River since 1908, and the reservoir was built in the late 1950s with the assumption that the same amount of water would continue to be diverted to the Russian River and Lake Mendocino. However, since 2006, diversions from the Eel River have decreased by about 57 percent, resulting in an average reduction of total inflow to the reservoir of approximately 40 percent. This rapid change in water supply put everything off kilter, and we are still struggling to manage the reservoir to provide adequate water supply. Those conditions were right for a FIRO solution. Municipal Water Leader: How did the Lake Mendocino FIRO project progress? Marty Ralph: At an interagency Russian River workshop in early 2014 at Sonoma Water, I launched the idea of a FIRO project. The Army Corps participants were on board. One of the action items from that meeting was for Jay and me to form a steering committee. This led to the first FIRO workshop, which was held at the Seaside Forum at Scripps in summer 2014. The FIRO steering committee and a group of other experts came together and developed the technical FIRO work plan, which was finalized the following summer. The creation of a detailed technical work plan led naturally to a collaboration with the relevant Army Corps research entity, the Coastal and Hydrology Lab at the Engineer Research and Development Center, which ultimately provided the primary funding for executing major portions of the work plan. That work plan spent 2 years in a September 2021 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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ADVERTISEMENT preliminary viability assessment (PVA); the remainder of the 5 years focused on the final viability assessment (FVA). Initially, we launched the FIRO project with the intention of it being a research study that would generate a paper report over the course of 5 years; there would be no change in how the reservoir was operated as we developed the concept and explored its viability. When the 2 years of PVA finished in 2018, the results were so encouraging that the Army Corps requested the proposal of a major deviation to Lake Mendocino’s water control manual that would allow its operators to consider the forecast in their day-to-day reservoir operations decisions.

Lake Mendocino, pictured here in 2019.

A major deviation requires a rigorous review, and it was suggested that the grassroots committee itself be the entity to submit the formal major deviation request. Our committee authored, prepared, and submitted the request to the Army Corps, and it was reviewed for over a year. Ultimately, the Army Corps approved the deviation a week before the beginning of the new water year. Were it not for the approval, the Army Corps would have been required to release several thousand acre-feet of water to open the space normally required for flood control purposes. Instead, it was possible to retain that water at least into the winter. That approval began a 2‑year trial run, during which the reservoir operated based on the FIRO effort.

24 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

Marty Ralph: We are happy to report that FIRO worked just as we thought it would. In January, the reservoir was at its normal, expected level of about 68,000 acre-feet. In a relatively dry winter, there were enough storms to moisten the soil that by mid-January, when two ARs hit over a week or two, they partially filled the reservoir’s empty space, the flood pool, by about 11,000 acre-feet up to about 80,000 acre-feet. Normal operations would have required operators to drain the reservoir back to 68,000 acre-feet instead of keeping it at roughly 80,000. The major deviation allows the operator to monitor the forecast on a daily basis for the rest of the winter. With no big ARs on the horizon, that water was not released. By the middle of March, the water that normally would have been released was still in the reservoir and became part of the water supply for the summer during this exceptionally dry year. It was a remarkable success story. Municipal Water Leader: Is there anything else you want to add about the findings of the FVA? Jay Jasperse: A lot of good work from the FVA focusing on the practicality and feasibility of FIRO is now being implemented. FIRO 1.0, as we call it, was analyzed based on current technology and scientific capabilities in the FVA. However, we want to anticipate the growth path for future iterations of FIRO. Future research and collaboration between researchers and operators will identify and leverage new technology, science, and forecasting skills. We do not have to wait 20 years to figure out how to take the last 20 years of advances and incorporate them into FIRO. Marty Ralph: As forecasts get better, the range of options for reservoir operations will increase. The FIRO concept is being tested now at a couple of other reservoirs of different sizes, climates, purposes, and operating complexities. Expanding municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTO COURTESY OF SONOMA WATER.

Jay Jasperse: We received our first major deviation in the 2019 water year, a wet year in which we experienced flooding. Using FIRO tools, the operators were able to successfully navigate the high-flow conditions experienced during that winter and spring. By contrast, 2020 was the third driest of the 127 years on record. We essentially relived the 2013 water year that originally motivated us to develop

the FIRO program at Lake Mendocino. We had the early storms followed by a dry winter and spring, but this time we were able to use FIRO to achieve a much better result than we did in 2013. Using FIRO increased our storage by 19 percent over what we would have had if we had operated under the historic rule curve. This was a significant success. Even though we have completed the FVA, we are hoping that we can continue to operate and learn more about FIRO operations over the next 5 years as we work with the Army Corps to formally update the water control manual to include the FIRO strategy. As the strategy must be carefully thought out and crafted, we expect this next step to take several years.

ADVERTISEMENT the exploration of FIRO viability to other reservoirs and continuing to develop the FIRO concept are the primary next steps. Research into landfalling ARs and the precipitation and runoff they cause will enable greater flexibility in future reservoir operations here at Lake Mendocino and in other locations where ARs are the dominant storm type. Municipal Water Leader: Based on this trial and others like it, will there be overall changes to the Army Corps’ regulations or manuals? Jay Jasperse: The Army Corps’ San Francisco District, which operates Lake Mendocino, is starting to update its water control manual to include FIRO. Marty Ralph: The engineering regulation that allows for forecast information underpins all this innovation. Each reservoir has its own water control manual, and the FIRO effort helps explore whether it is viable to consider more flexible operations in each reservoir based on skillful forecasts. If it is viable, then the water control manual could be modified to adopt the appropriate level of flexibility. The vision is that FIRO helps do the homework to allow for updates in those water control manuals.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SONOMA WATER AND USCD.

Municipal Water Leader: Where else is FIRO being piloted? Marty Ralph: Because of the grassroots effort I described, Lake Mendocino’s was the first FIRO pilot study. The next to have its viability assessment come online was Prado Dam on the Santa Ana River in Southern California. AR storms are the main player there as well. We partnered with Orange County Water District (OCWD) and the Army Corps’ Los Angeles District on that project. Prado Dam is in a big urban area, unlike Lake Mendocino, which is located in a relatively rural area of Sonoma. The distance from the reservoir to the ocean is also shorter. The reservoir is used primarily for flood control, and after a storm, it normally keeps only a small amount of water, which is used to recharge groundwater. We are looking into whether some extra water could be kept after a storm long enough to be recharged into the groundwater that OCWD maintains. The PVA is nearly completed and looks promising; we are about to start the FVA process. The next FIRO viability assessment combines two reservoirs, Yuba Water Agency’s New Bullards Bar Dam in the northern Sierra on the west side of the Sierra Nevada and the nearby Oroville Dam, which is operated by the California Department of Water Resources. Both are fed by the Yuba and Feather Rivers, and combined, they hold nearly 5 million acre-feet of water. We have formed a FIRO steering committee for the Yuba-Feather system, have nearly finished creating the work plan, and have started the PVA. Jay Jasperse: In the case of the Yuba-Feather system, there is also a parallel effort to look at updating the water control municipalwaterleader.com

manual. For Lake Mendocino, it was sequential: We started with FIRO and then turned to the water control manual update. At Yuba-Feather, they are running in parallel and are being coordinated. The next effort is being initiated in the Seattle area at the Howard Hanson Dam, where we are working with the Northwest District of the Army Corps. Marty Ralph: FIRO is potentially applicable in many other locations across the nation. However, our forecast abilities vary a lot when it comes to extreme precipitation. Thunderstorms, which are the primary source of flooding in parts of the country, are pretty tough to predict. It looks like ARs may have the best inherent predictability, but there is work to be done to explore whether we have the skills to forecast tropical cyclones or big convective storms in the Midwest, the Southeast, and Texas well enough to enable FIRO in those parts of the country. That is being researched. Municipal Water Leader: Is there anything you would like to add? Jay Jasperse: While we have talked a lot about the technical aspects of FIRO and the engineering aspects of reservoir operations, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the steering committee’s efforts. The initial partnership was able to successfully establish a multiagency, multidisciplinary steering committee. There are research scientists, fisheries biologists, reservoir managers, and water supply managers among our ranks. Leveraging our diverse experience and skill sets helped us to realize this accomplishment at Lake Mendocino. Marty Ralph: I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. The building of trust through the formation of the steering committee was key because the different parties have different interests and priorities. The steering committee created a shared vision of what could be achieved, underpinning the whole effort’s success. That is something our committee members have often noted. M

Jay Jasperse is the chief engineer and director of groundwater management at the Sonoma Water Agency. He can be reached at jay.jasperse@scwa.ca.gov. Marty Ralph is a hydrometeorologist and the founding director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. He can be reached at mralph@ucsd.edu. September 2021 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Mike Pearce: Innovating Phosphorous Out of Water Supplies at SePRO

A EutroSORB filter deployed at a discharge point.

Mike Pearce: SePRO is a research-based life sciences company. It was founded in 1994 by Bill Culpepper. As I mentioned, SePRO is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana. We have a manufacturing and distribution facility and a 410‑acre research and technology campus in North Carolina. SePRO focuses on developing and bringing value-added products to support various markets such as aquatics, ornamentals, specialty ag, and turf and landscape.

Municipal Water Leader: Tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the problem of phosphorus pollution and its effects.

Mike Pearce: I grew up in the state of Washington and graduated from Washington State University. I have worked with water my entire career, initially working for an irrigation district in southeastern Washington for more than 11 years. In 2011, I joined SePRO as a technical specialist in the Pacific Northwest. In 2017, I was appointed to the position of portfolio leader for algae and water quality solutions, which required me to move to SePRO’s headquarters in Carmel, Indiana. My family and I have really enjoyed the Midwest and Hoosier hospitality.

Mike Pearce: Phosphorus pollution is widespread in U.S. water resources. From small ponds to the largest of lakes, it affects water quality throughout the country. Each month, tens of thousands of metric tons of phosphorus flow into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River watershed. Currently, over 48,000 lakes are impaired by phosphorus pollution. Phosphorus is a key contributing factor to eutrophication, which is the overloading of water by nutrients. Excessive levels of phosphorus can put entire aquatic ecosystems at risk. Eutrophication can lead to harmful algal blooms, which can develop dangerous toxins that can put humans, wildlife, and local economies at risk.

Municipal Water Leader: Please give us a quick introduction to SePRO.

30 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER | September 2021

municipalwaterleader.com

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SEPRO.

hosphorous, which is naturally occurring, can create toxic algae blooms in canals and reservoirs that degrade water quality and impair natural ecosystems. Fortunately, SePRO Corporation has developed a novel filter system that easily removes phosphorous from moving water. In this interview, SePRO’s Mike Pearce tells Municipal Water Leader about the problems phosphorous creates in water, how the company’s product helps remove it, and how the filter is helping to improve the outcomes of municipal and irrigation water infrastructure.

ADVERTISEMENT Municipal Water Leader: How does EutroSORB differ from other phosphorus control technologies? Mike Pearce: EutroSORB phosphorus filtration technology is a novel solution for filtering phosphorus from moving water. EutroSORB filters phosphorus, helps stop eutrophication, and protects water quality immediately. There are not many commercially available phosphorus mitigation technologies in the surface water market today. What makes EutroSORB distinctive is that it does not remain permanently in place or become part of the environment, as the filters are removed once the filter media has been exhausted. Another difference is that it only binds phosphorus, not heavy metals or toxins, so it can be safely discarded after use. Municipal Water Leader: Would the filter be placed in a certain section of a pipeline or open channel? Mike Pearce: EutroSORB filters can easily be placed in locations such as culverts, streams, creeks, canals, or elsewhere in moving water. They can also be placed in front of culverts and discharge locations and above the inlets and outlets of ponds and lakes. EutroSORB filters can also be placed around storm water drains to mitigate phosphorus that is flowing from system to system. EutroSORB filters should be placed and positioned to optimize the filter’s exposure to moving water. A general goal is to get as much water as possible to pass through the filter without backing the water up to a point of risk. Municipal Water Leader: Are the customers for this product primarily in the municipal or irrigation markets? Mike Pearce: Our consumers come from a variety of markets. Anybody that is involved with water resource management and has an interest in removing phosphorus from moving water should consider EutroSORB. We are helping municipalities, water resource managers, irrigation districts, and golf course superintendents protect and restore their water quality. Many local, state, and federal governments and agencies have phosphorus discharge limits they need to meet. EutroSORB can help them comply with those by lowering the phosphorus levels in the water as it comes and goes. At SePRO, we like to say, “Better water in, better water out.” Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about the installation process, the product’s maintenance needs, and how often the filters need to be switched out. Mike Pearce: Each EutroSORB bag includes two 25‑pound filters. We can also make custom-size filters. To immediately begin removing phosphorus, you simply place a filter in flowing water—it is that simple. Depending on the site and the amount of water that you are applying the filters to, you may want to secure them so they stay in place and do municipalwaterleader.com

EutroSORB filters remove phosphorus from water, preventing eutrophication.

not move downstream. That is about as complicated as the application process gets. There are a lot of variables that come into play on the frequency of filter changes. As general guidance, leave the filters in place for up to 8 weeks or for the entire season. The filters can be rotated or changed out periodically to optimize binding capacity and phosphorus removal. Municipal Water Leader: What do you do with the filters after they are used? Mike Pearce: We are frequently asked that question by consumers. The exhausted filter media can be applied to turf or landscape bedding as a soil amendment—essentially recycling the phosphorus from the water to the soil. Because the filters do not bind toxins or heavy metals, they can easily be disposed of in a landfill as well. Municipal Water Leader: Is this product already in use, and what results have your clients seen from it? Mike Pearce: EutroSORB was made available to consumers in April. We are happy with the results and feedback received from the various water resource managers using EutroSORB. They have really enjoyed the simplicity of the technology. Collected data confirm that EutroSORB is an effective and efficient solution for removing phosphorus from moving water. One pound of phosphorus in water can support up to 500 pounds of algae, so removing excess phosphorus is critical to protecting water quality from the negative effects of eutrophication. We look forward to learning more from EutroSORB consumers as we move forward. M Mike Pearce is the portfolio leader for algae and water quality solutions at SePRO Corporation. He can be reached at mpearce@sepro.com.

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• Standard Pulse Output Optional 4-20 Madc, Modbus & HART Outputs • 5 Year Warranty & 5 Year Battery Life • Unobstructed Flow • 2” - 14” Line Sizes

EX Series Insertion Magmeter • Up to 72” Line Sizes • No Parts to Wear Out • Durable & Easy to Install

PM01 Insertion Propeller Meter Available to Replace All Brands of Municipal • Propeller Meters 6” to 72” Telemetry Ready Pulse Output and Optional • 4-20 Madc Output

PM04 Flanged Propeller Meter

Long-life, Water-lubricated Ceramic Bearing • Easy to Read, Stabilized, Non-bounce Graphic Display • Pulse Output Standard •

Seametrics & TechnoFlo - Your Municipal Meter Experts Count on TechnoFlo to meet any of your hard-to-measure and special applications

Contact TECHNOFLO SYSTEMS for details www.technoflo.com Call (559) 783-1207

BUILT IN THE USA

AJ DO VB E RLTI S I STEI N MG ES NT

Does your organization have a job listing you would like to advertise in our pages? Municipal Water Leader provides this service to irrigation districts, water agencies, and hydropower facilities free of charge. For more information, please email Kris Polly at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

REGIONAL SUPERVISOR - PLANT OPERATIONS Location: Adelanto, CA; Tracy, CA; and Portland, OR (travel 30%) Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +D irects and coordinates activities concerned with manufacturing of company products by performing the essential job functions personally or through their subordinates. REQUIREMENTS: +2 ‑year college or technical school; or 3–5 years related experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience. +P revious supervisory experience in a manufacturing environment required. +E xperience in a heavy-industrial manufacturing environment preferred. For more information: contact Nick Hidalgo, talent acquisition at nhidalgo@nwpipe.com, or go to www.nwpipe.com/careers.

LABOR COATING TECHNICIAN Location: Atlanta, GA, and Denver, CO Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: + Surface Preparation of the area in which epoxy will be applied; perform functions of a laborer as required.; sandblast to remove debris from metal; operate electric and hand tools; operate a high-PSI pressure washer and spray gun. REQUIREMENTS: +M ust be willing to travel in and out of state when needed. +M ust feel comfortable working in a confined space for long periods; municipalwaterleader.com

must be able to stand for long periods. +W illing to complete a field training in Massachusetts. +A ble to complete a confined space training (provided by A&W); able to complete OSHA 10 and other safety training (provided by A&W); able to travel to Massachusetts for ongoing field training. For more information: For Atlantabased position, contact Cherry L. Martinez, senior recruiter, at (407) 287‑8790 or cmartinez@garney.com For Denverbased position, contact Ariana Craft, recruiter, at (407) 287‑8808 or abehler@garney.com. For more information: contact Josh Snow at jsnow@garney.com

PROJECT ENGINEER Location: Denver, CO Deadline: Open until filled Salary: Based on qualifications RESPONSIBILITIES: +N egotiate and purchase materials +C reate submittals, RFIs, and change orders +C oordinate projects from start to finish: assist with estimating; project setup & closeout; support field operations; maintain detailed job costs +A ssist in scheduling projects and crews +B e willing to fill in on crew when needed REQUIREMENTS: +D egree in civil engineering, construction management, or other related field +0 –3 years experience +L ocated in or willing to relocate to the Denver area +M ust be willing to travel 1–4 weeks at a time to support projects.

. RENEWABLE ENERGY ANALYST Location: Atlanta, GA Deadline: Open until filled Salary: $70,000 – $95,000 RESPONSIBILITIES: +E xecute analytical, strategic, and financial assessments for business case development +G ather customer/market information and offer recommendations to answer key business questions +Q uantify risk and rewards to prioritize commercial activity and drive sales +T ranslate business problems into advanced analytics and research projects +P roactively manage customer and partner deliverables to ensure excellence and consistency +O wn detailed financial modeling and market research for economic determinations such as cost of energy, breakeven, and project IR +A nalyze and evaluate data, creating innovative advanced analytics and data visualizations REQUIREMENTS: +B BA/BA/BS in business, finance, accounting, or engineering + I nvolvement in developing creative research and analysis program + I ntermediate proficiency with Excel and PowerPoint for financial modeling and presentations +E xcellent written, analytical, and organizational skills, including the proven ability to manage multiple projects +A bility to travel up 25% For more information: go to https://emrgy.com/careers/ or send cover letter and resume to HR@emergy.com

September 2021 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

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Upcoming Events September 13–16 National Water Works Association, WaterPro Conference, Milwaukee, WI September 14 Husker Harvest Days, Grand Island, NE September 17 Agribusiness & Water Council of Arizona, Annual Meeting and Water Conference, Phoenix, AZ, and virtual September 21–23 Hydrovision International, Spokane, WA September 22–29 National Drilling Association Convention, Charlotte, NC September 26–28 Nebraska Association of Resources Districts, Natural Resources Districts Annual Conference, Kearney, NE September 28–30 The Water Council, Alliance for Water Stewardship Training, virtual October 3–6 Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, Executive Management Conference, Denver, CO October 5–9 Water Environment Federation, WEFTEC, Chicago, IL, and virtual October 13–15 National Association of Counties, Western Interstate Region Conference, Salt Lake County, UT October 18–21 The California–Nevada Section of the American Water Works Association, Annual Fall Conference, virtual October 29 Agribusiness & Water Council of Arizona, H2Open Golf Tournament, Casa Grande, AZ November 3–5 National Conference of State Legislatures, Legislative Summit, Tampa, FL November 8–10 National Water Resources Association, 90th Annual Conference, Phoenix, AZ November 15–16 National Association of Clean Water Agencies, Fall Strategic Leadership Meeting, Charleston, SC November 15–18 International Water Association, Digital Water Summit, Bilbao, Spain, November 17–18 Kansas Governor’s Water Conference, Manhattan, KS November 17–19 National Association of Clean Water Agencies, National Clean Water Law & Enforcement Seminar, Charleston, SC November 18–20 National League of Cities, City Summit, Salt Lake City, UT November 30–December 3 Association of California Water Agencies, Fall Conference & Exhibition, Pasadena, CA

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Municipal Water Leader September 2021

Articles inside

Mike Pearce: Innovating Phosphorous Out of Water Supplies at SePRO

Jay Jasperse and Marty Ralph: Piloting Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations at Lake Mendocino

Dr. Matt Makley: Teaching the History of Western Water to Inform Future Problem Solvers

Dr. Elizabeth McVicker on Her Water Law Course

Terry Bower: The Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Water Studies Certification Program

Education, Research, and Technology