Maintaining TID's System and Facilities

On Episode 9 of the TID Water & Power Podcast we sit down with TID’s Chris Hardin to discuss the work that goes into maintaining system and facilities.

This year TID celebrates our 135th anniversary and we’re excited to kick off 2022 with a dive into how the District maintains a system that is over 100 years old to continue providing essential services to our customers. On this episode we discuss the work that goes into maintaining a 100-plus year-old system, key projects that have modernized the District's system, and the unique and talented folks that keep the system operating. 

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Find out more about TID at https://www.TID.org/podcast. 

Let’s get social!
Facebook: @TurlockID
Instagram: @TurlockID
Twitter: @TurlockID
LinkedIn: /company/turlockid

Find out more about TID at https://www.TID.org/podcast.

Transcript

00;00;06;07 - 00;00;30;01
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to the TID Water and Power Podcast. I'm your host, Constance Anderson. And on this month's episode, we're discussing what goes into maintaining TID's system and facilities and the team responsible for doing the work. This year, TID celebrates our 135th anniversary, and we're excited to kick off 2022 with a dive into how the district maintains

00;00;30;01 - 00;00;43;21
Speaker 1
a system that is over 100 years old to continue providing essential services to our customers. We've featured a lot of important topics on the podcast, but this is the first time we're going to drill down and talk about some of the different positions at the district.

00;00;44;05 - 00;01;01;11
Speaker 1
We have an important group at TID that maintains all of the moving parts, and I'm excited to showcase some of the talent we have here. On this episode, I'm joined by TID Construction and Maintenance Department manager Chris Hardin to discuss the work that goes into maintaining a 100 plus year old system.

00;01;01;22 - 00;01;09;19
Speaker 1
Key projects that have modernized the district system and the unique and talented folks that keep the system operating. Chris, thanks for joining us.

00;01;10;16 - 00;01;14;16
Speaker 2
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and represent the construction and maintenance department.

00;01;14;22 - 00;01;25;23
Speaker 1
Right on. Okay. So let's start by you telling us a little bit about your current role at the District and your progression into becoming the Construction and maintenance department manager.

00;01;26;06 - 00;01;43;06
Speaker 2
So currently on the department manager, as I started out here in 2007 as a maintenance worker, I worked my way up through to heavy equipment operator and then into a heavy equipment division manager, followed by my current role as department manager.

00;01;44;20 - 00;01;50;01
Speaker 2
We take care of everything that has to do with the maintenance side and construction building for the district.

00;01;50;21 - 00;01;56;03
Speaker 1
That's great. And having gone through that progression, you've, you've seen a little bit of everything.

00;01;56;03 - 00;02;08;04
Speaker 2
So yeah, that in my past, prior to coming to TID, I came over here from the Delta Mendota Canal on their maintenance and construction crew of six years. So it helped me transition. Bring in some of my experience.

00;02;08;10 - 00;02;23;20
Speaker 1
Great. So the Construction and Maintenance Department is a pretty substantial department at TID both in the scope of what you guys do and the number of people. Can you tell us a little bit about the role of the department and then the divisions that make up construction and maintenance?

00;02;24;12 - 00;02;43;09
Speaker 2
Yeah. So the Construction Maintenance Department maintains 250 miles of canal, along with about 700 miles of pipeline and facilities. It's made up of four different divisions. We got the fleet and fabrication equipment operations and pest control, Gunite and pipeline and then the facilities and custodial.

00;02;44;07 - 00;02;49;21
Speaker 1
Great. And tell us a little bit about some of the specific roles within each of those divisions.

00;02;50;12 - 00;03;08;28
Speaker 2
So construction, maintenance, they go through, they take care of a lot of building our drops, maintaining the actual canals or as a weed control pipeline, gunite heavy equipment operations runs any of our heavy equipment and crane related equipment.

00;03;09;13 - 00;03;21;12
Speaker 2
Our welders and fabrication side build pretty much everything withinside the district that we have contracted in our fleet technicians take care of all of our equipment and we have crew supervisors and division managers.

00;03;22;12 - 00;03;43;12
Speaker 1
Awesome. So obviously yours is a team that is busy year round, but as much as you guys do to support the irrigation system, you definitely face some constraints in trying to work around the irrigation season. So let's talk about the focus of the work that construction of maintenance does during the irrigation off season, because that's a 

00;03;43;12 - 00;03;45;07
Speaker 1
a pretty small window for you guys, is that right?

00;03;45;13 - 00;04;07;24
Speaker 2
So this is where we take advantage of the water being out of the system. We have capital projects such as drop rehabs, we have Gunite, we have grading of the canals, spraying of the canals we go through after the cleaning crews have cleaned all the different laterals and mains siphons, we patch canals and then typically run through

00;04;07;24 - 00;04;08;08
Speaker 2
March.

00;04;08;28 - 00;04;19;17
Speaker 1
Okay, so the irrigation season typically runs March to October. So really November to February is when you guys have access to the canals to do a lot of this work. Is that Right?

00;04;19;17 - 00;04;31;12
Speaker 2
Correct. And this may change depending on weather. And we've had early irrigation throughout the season where they brought water in for two weeks. We had to pull everything out, cancel projects, and then they'll drain it and we start over again.

00;04;31;22 - 00;04;34;04
Speaker 2
And it could be extended all the way out through April.

00;04;34;13 - 00;04;46;15
Speaker 1
Wow. Yeah. So definitely some schedule juggling that goes into each year because every season is different than the one before it and the one after it, right? Correct. Okay. All right. So you've mentioned Gunite a couple of times.

00;04;47;11 - 00;04;55;13
Speaker 1
Can you tell us a little bit about. Well, first of all, what is gunite? Can you describe that process for us? And then tell us about a couple of those jobs that you guys have done recently?

00;04;55;24 - 00;05;14;28
Speaker 2
Yeah. So gunite, it is like relining the concrete inside the canal. Most of our canals are concrete lined. We have the Highline Canal, which is dirt, but the aging concrete itself starts to leak, fall apart, get delaminated. We go through and we put another layer of concrete that we spray over it.

00;05;15;08 - 00;05;33;24
Speaker 2
It's a more cost effective way than actually ripping out the concrete itself. It's a dry cement mix that is forced to a hose with air and then is mixed at the end with the water. It's life expectancy is around 50 years and we roughly do about 400,000 square foot each year.

00;05;34;04 - 00;05;53;05
Speaker 1
Wow. That is a lot of gunite. And so, again, a 100 year old plus system. Certainly with infrastructure, that's that's that old and that is used as regularly as our canal system is. It's going to need some fairly continuous maintenance and repairs to keep that up.

00;05;53;15 - 00;06;03;26
Speaker 1
How do you guys determine which areas of the canals or the laterals will be re-gunited or will receive this type of work each year?

00;06;04;15 - 00;06;18;11
Speaker 2
So we have a couple of different ways. We have what's called a Squawk List throughout the year. Ditch tenders or even our maintenance staff will go through and they will report leaks and different things that have happened throughout the canal system that may cause a problem.

00;06;18;23 - 00;06;37;12
Speaker 2
On top of that, we have an inspection team that goes out and they travel every canal, they'll grade every canal and we'll look at lining, we'll look at bank support, drops, the function of the actual canal. Then that comes back to the capital planning team, which will look at the scores, how they're ranked, and we will determine

00;06;38;01 - 00;06;51;13
Speaker 2
where we're going to spend our capital funds that year. And what's most important at the time? Obviously, your leaks and stuff like that need to be repaired. That'll take priority. And then we'll go down to drops and function of the actual canal system.

00;06;52;22 - 00;07;04;04
Speaker 1
Okay. But you mentioned Squawk List. I like that. I think I'm going to I think I'm going to use that from now on, depending on the size of the Gunite project and the span that you guys are covering.

00;07;04;21 - 00;07;23;03
Speaker 1
The project itself could be weeks long. I know that there's a cleaning portion that has to be taken care of prior to applying the gun. Right. So that that certainly adds to part of the process. And while most of our irrigation system is in a more rural area, occasionally this work has to be completed in a very

00;07;23;03 - 00;07;36;12
Speaker 1
public location. I think one of those that you guys did in the last couple of years was a job on lateral four, which is the canal that runs right through the middle of Turlock along Canal Drive. Can you tell us a little bit about that project?

00;07;36;26 - 00;07;48;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. So first off, you're correct on the cleaning as we go through that, it's got to have a clean surface to stick to. So we typically take a brush and we will brush with the excavator, get all the moss and algae that's built up.

00;07;48;26 - 00;08;02;05
Speaker 2
And then we go through with a high pressure washer system wash from top to bottom. And then gunite crews will follow projects like lateral for. We obviously had a lot to contend with with these schools. We had traffic going through there.

00;08;02;05 - 00;08;16;04
Speaker 2
You got a walk past and we had fencing working around their street lights. There was a lot of different stuff that we had to take into account. We ran screens to try to protect any vehicles or traffic going by.

00;08;16;10 - 00;08;29;17
Speaker 2
Obviously Gunite, as you're spraying it mixes in, it gets airborne. Wintertime might not be the most ideal with fog and wind and stuff with storms, obviously, that type of weather, but it's the only time we have to get in there.

00;08;29;25 - 00;08;42;22
Speaker 2
So we take every precaution that we can through town. Like I said, you make you put screens up. This adds quite a bit more labor to the crews to be able to pull everything from each span that they spray.

00;08;43;08 - 00;08;55;13
Speaker 2
But we had to have traffic control out there, shut down lanes on each side. We had wash crews washing everything down the roadways. It's not like your typical canal bank where you wouldn't worry about that. This is all through town.

00;08;55;21 - 00;08;56;15
Speaker 2
Very high. Visible.

00;08;57;10 - 00;09;14;11
Speaker 1
Yeah, that was definitely a challenging area between the the shopping center and the two schools being right there. And like you mentioned, that walkway is a very popular place for morning and afternoon walkers and dog walkers. So you guys definitely had had some challenges to contend with on that one.

00;09;15;22 - 00;09;20;17
Speaker 1
And then there was another Gunite project out in Delhi on lateral six. Is that right?

00;09;21;00 - 00;09;32;25
Speaker 2
Yeah, same set up. We had a school that we had to deal with and we were also behind a subdivision. And those were the two that we've kind of waited for last because it did bring so many complications.

00;09;33;17 - 00;09;40;13
Speaker 2
Typically, like this year, we're out on lateral six again, but we're out in the country where we're not really affecting anything along with our cross-stitch, too.

00;09;41;05 - 00;09;53;02
Speaker 1
Very good. All right. So besides the the Gunite maintenance projects, there's additional general maintenance duties that have to be completed during the irrigation off season. Can you tell us about those?

00;09;54;01 - 00;10;09;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, we actually have a maintenance routine that we go through. We try to work together because you have multiple crews. Right now, we're around 85 guys in our department, so trying to get everywhere. They're not stepping on top of each other, slowing someone else down.

00;10;10;03 - 00;10;23;25
Speaker 2
We try to have a routine. So first off, we have a cleaning crew that will go through our laterals when we put them on the outage list. We'll pick one canal, go down. We'll have a bobcat and an excavator cleaning everything out, cleaning the siphons.

00;10;24;05 - 00;10;40;05
Speaker 2
And then we have a patch crew that follows behind that. And any cracks or leaks that have been reported on that Squawk List, we mentioned anything that may have been uncovered by the cleaning crew or broke, it does happen when we're running an excavator in there to pull some of the muck out.

00;10;40;26 - 00;10;53;20
Speaker 2
They'll go through, patch everything back up. And then after that, we have a gate crew that follows behind. And all of our watermen are irrigation side gates along with the Rubicons as they run through, check them, make sure everything's operating as it should.

00;10;53;25 - 00;11;04;27
Speaker 2
No leaks. And behind that, we also have an automatic crew that works on our Meikle automatics. And we're slowly changing those out for Rubicon, but we still do have quite a few in the district.

00;11;05;06 - 00;11;09;29
Speaker 1
And I'm going to interrupt you real quick, a Meikle and a Rubicon. Those are what.

00;11;10;19 - 00;11;25;27
Speaker 2
Book measuring devices. So the Meikle Automatic was designed by Roy Meikle that was here and we still have them in use today. They pretty much keep elevation inside the canal and in a Rubicon we're using as side gates and drops.

00;11;26;04 - 00;11;29;08
Speaker 2
But they'll do the same and they're able to report back.

00;11;29;23 - 00;11;31;27
Speaker 1
Very good. All right. Sorry to interrupt you.

00;11;32;19 - 00;11;49;10
Speaker 2
No problem. So after the patch crews have came through and all the heavy equipment has been up and down the canal banks, we've come back with graders and grade the canal banks off and get our 2% slope to prevent erosion and then follow that with our spring pre merchant to try to keep our weed growth down.

00;11;50;02 - 00;12;04;09
Speaker 1
Okay. I know I've mentioned this a couple of times now, but it's still amazing to me that a gravity based irrigation system that was built over 100 years ago still runs so efficiently, and so much of that is due to the care and maintenance of that your team puts into it.

00;12;04;09 - 00;12;21;08
Speaker 1
So thanks for that. Outside of annual maintenance to the canal system, the irrigation off season is also the time that TID uses to complete any large capital project work, as I think you mentioned earlier. Can you tell us about some of the projects that were completed this last off season?

00;12;22;03 - 00;12;40;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, we had three major projects, the first one being Dawson Hydroplant. The over poor structure had a stop log setup that we wanted to switch out to slide gates. This was actually a very important project as we were pouring 14 yards of concrete, about ten foot off the ground.

00;12;40;24 - 00;13;00;22
Speaker 2
So it took a lot of experience and bracing and these guys working together to make sure that we didn't lose, that. It was a pretty important project as it included a lot of our different crews from the crane lowering stuff in and out of there are construction crews, a couple of different crew supervisors working together just to

00;13;00;22 - 00;13;17;27
Speaker 2
share experience. And it actually turned out really good. We completed that at the third week in December and some of the other projects we had were the automation of Drop one on Lateral seven and the automation of dropped four on lateral six.

00;13;19;06 - 00;13;24;11
Speaker 1
So when you say drop automation, what was what was the work that was actually completed at each of those locations?

00;13;25;04 - 00;13;43;19
Speaker 2
So the old style drops. We may have a Meikle Automatic or a beggarman or an over pour. We're switching these out to Rubicon style gaits so that we have a little bit more flexibility. They will maintain the water flow along with giving us back a reading that we can see obfuscated.

00;13;44;20 - 00;13;59;13
Speaker 2
And they'll actually work together. So like we mentioned, they're at drop one on lateral seven, which is right next to six. It comes off a six. So those two will work together to keep the reservoir above them full and keep a certain water level.

00;14;00;03 - 00;14;11;04
Speaker 1
So really, it's it's almost a technological upgrade to the system because now we have these gates that are able to provide information to us that we weren't able to get from the previous style of Gates. Is that right?

00;14;11;07 - 00;14;22;23
Speaker 2
Correct. In order to get it before, you'd have to actually be out there, read a staff gauge and see where they're at and make adjustments. These will actually do it all from skate where they can actually tap in on their tablet and make adjustments.

00;14;23;06 - 00;14;30;08
Speaker 1
Very good. All right. How long has the district been working on this particular project, the installation of these Rubicon gates?

00;14;30;26 - 00;14;43;02
Speaker 2
So the first Rubicon was installed on the head of lateral four back in 2005. Rubicon had actually reached out to the district. We had been working with them and kind of trying it out to see if it was feasible for us.

00;14;43;17 - 00;15;01;07
Speaker 2
And then in 2009, Senate bill, SB X7-7 was put in place where we had to be more efficient with our water. So the district had chose to go ahead and go with the Rubicon because they are kind of all in one type of gate.

00;15;01;22 - 00;15;12;09
Speaker 2
Not only like I mentioned, they will measure everything they have their own power source, but they also have SCADA capabilities for us to see what's actually happening in more real time.

00;15;12;28 - 00;15;17;28
Speaker 1
Very good. And that assists with the the volumetric measuring that the district is now doing.

00;15;18;00 - 00;15;18;13
Speaker 2
Correct.

00;15;18;24 - 00;15;19;09
Speaker 1
Great.

00;15;19;18 - 00;15;30;09
Speaker 2
So that started in 2013. And I don't think we actually build until 2019. So we were just installing, trying it out, making sure it worked for us.

00;15;30;21 - 00;15;33;29
Speaker 1
How many Rubicon Gates has TID installed at this point?

00;15;34;20 - 00;15;47;16
Speaker 2
I believe we're around the 300 mark for permanent, but we have also installed multiple frames for slip meters where we can rotate a gate instead of having one permanent there. We have a total of 1600 side gates or turnouts on our system.

00;15;48;01 - 00;16;00;17
Speaker 2
So it was more cost effective to have. Multiple slip meters that can be rotated rather than one that's actually just there. But some permanents are required in certain areas where you have multiple farmers pulling off a one side gate.

00;16;00;24 - 00;16;11;03
Speaker 1
Hmm. Okay. Interesting. All right. And speaking of automation, you guys have also been working on automating the head gates at Turlock Lake. Is that right?

00;16;11;24 - 00;16;23;11
Speaker 2
It's right now it's being talked about. I know we have talked about it throughout the capital teams meetings. They're looking into trying to order the motors this year and then maybe we will upgrade the gates in the following year.

00;16;24;15 - 00;16;27;19
Speaker 2
I believe we're going to try to do that here in the next couple of months.

00;16;27;26 - 00;16;31;10
Speaker 1
That's great. And what advantage will that give the district?

00;16;32;17 - 00;16;45;00
Speaker 2
We will be able to run the Turlock Lake at a lower level. We seem to have seepage issues when you max the lake out itself. So if we can do, we could run it lower in drier years. This will help us with water loss.

00;16;45;10 - 00;16;59;15
Speaker 2
And then also it'll give us quicker reaction times when the hydroelectric plant wants to meet current demands, they would be able to open or close these gates through the SCADA system. Also, rather than right now, they're manually operated.

00;17;00;08 - 00;17;20;04
Speaker 1
All right. So even though the irrigation season, as we mentioned, sorry, the irrigation off season typically runs from November to February. Occasionally growers still need to move water through the system from one parcel to another. So even though you have an already small window to work with, then during this irrigation off season, you still have to

00;17;20;04 - 00;17;23;17
Speaker 1
coordinate around our growers needs. How does that all work?

00;17;24;00 - 00;17;38;09
Speaker 2
So we meet once a week. We still have a WDO or ditch tender that works the winter months and we have what we call an outage list and we have a meeting every Monday morning where we coordinate with the WDO, what his needs are and what our needs are.

00;17;39;03 - 00;17;48;23
Speaker 2
We go through with our cleaning crew, we'll put them on the outage list, and then that canal will actually be out during that section while we go through the process we talked about earlier with the patch crew, gates and such.

00;17;49;02 - 00;17;56;25
Speaker 2
And as soon as we are done with that one, we'll go ahead and roll to the next canal. So we might have two or three off at one time and then they'll slowly start falling off.

00;17;57;16 - 00;18;10;13
Speaker 1
Okay. And then outside of our growers needs, then occasionally we might have a wet weather event that leads to some stormwater that we that we need to use the canal system for. Is that right?

00;18;10;19 - 00;18;24;11
Speaker 2
Connecting the cities with the city of Turlock there's a lot of drainage water know Cal trans dumps in the lateral five any of those we can't really put on the outage list. You know they may come to our project any point in time.

00;18;24;22 - 00;18;46;28
Speaker 1
Sure. It's just one more challenge to work around. All right. Although we'll never say no to a storm anytime or any time where we're getting precipitation, we're happy about that. All right. So with all that you guys have to accomplish during the irrigation off season, it's important to mention, as you did earlier, that there's a unique

00;18;46;28 - 00;18;59;19
Speaker 1
way that it utilizes district staff, specifically our WDO's, our water distribution operators, when they're not actively patrolling the canal system. How does that affect your team?

00;19;00;08 - 00;19;14;19
Speaker 2
That actually helps us. We have a about 52 positions on our side, including fleet that recently moved over during the off season. We'll get about 30 WDO's come over. That helps us with extra dump truck drivers, patch crew.

00;19;15;16 - 00;19;18;18
Speaker 2
A lot of the construction crews will have a few of them.

00;19;19;00 - 00;19;30;02
Speaker 1
So even when they're not overseeing the running of water, there's still plenty busy with all the projects that construction and maintenance needs to accomplish in that irrigation off season.

00;19;30;12 - 00;19;38;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's typically everybody else's slow time for us. That's our busy time. It's the only time we have to get inside the system and do these type of projects.

00;19;38;07 - 00;19;50;27
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Okay. So all of the work that we've talked about so far, which is all it takes place during the irrigation off season, but it's not like you guys get to hang up your hard hats and take the irrigation season off.

00;19;51;21 - 00;19;55;27
Speaker 1
Would you explain some of the regular work that takes place during the irrigation season?

00;19;56;19 - 00;20;14;03
Speaker 2
Yeah, so Fleet continues. That doesn't really change. That's year round. As far as the irrigation system itself, we start dealing with our aquatic growth, which can be done handled by either chaining or treating. We have our gate crews which have to be out there patrolling.

00;20;14;03 - 00;20;26;07
Speaker 2
We have, like I said, 1600 side gates and they leak. There's different things that happen if you get stuff cotton there, whether it be sticks, aquatic growth, any of that could cause problems.

00;20;26;23 - 00;20;33;03
Speaker 1
So when you mentioned aquatic growth and chaining the canals, what is that and why do we do that?

00;20;33;28 - 00;20;46;00
Speaker 2
So we have a couple sections that are dirt lined and just like the your driveways are dirt canal because on the top they grow weeds. One of the problems we have in there is you don't see them till they're a problem.

00;20;46;10 - 00;20;58;26
Speaker 2
They'll obstruct the flow. So if we can during the winter, we go through and clean out, try to get any of the seed beds out of there. But as we deal with it during the summer, we actually have to drag a chain and try to cut them off, just like mowing your yard.

00;20;59;13 - 00;21;12;00
Speaker 2
And then that creates a big problem that we have to go clean up because as they float. Get cut down on bridges, siphons drops, any of that. But if we don't, they would back up the flows and raise the water levels and ultimately overtop a canal.

00;21;12;14 - 00;21;15;29
Speaker 1
Got it. And certainly impede on the efficient running of water.

00;21;16;05 - 00;21;34;17
Speaker 2
Correct. So facilities keeps going. We have our two yards, our main admin office and in our second field office, along with 15 rental houses. Pipeline is continuous. It's you got to remember, that's a 100 plus year old system.

00;21;34;17 - 00;21;43;19
Speaker 2
Also, unlike the canal system, you can't really see it. You don't know anything's wrong until we actually get leaks. So we continue to work with that.

00;21;44;22 - 00;21;59;01
Speaker 1
So the pipelines you mentioned are all underground. So that's a little harder to identify when there's repair work that needs to be done. When you guys do identify a problem there, how do how do you go about fixing that?

00;21;59;24 - 00;22;16;18
Speaker 2
So typically, you won't see it until there's an actual leak. And at that point, a farmer or customer will call in to our troubleshooter. The troubleshooter will go out. He will locate the pipeline itself, find the leak. He'll flag it, call in a USA for us to be able to dig it.

00;22;17;00 - 00;22;35;07
Speaker 2
He'll go through and assess the situation or what he thinks is wrong. Come back, make a work order for our crews and then our crews will prioritize it and make sure that the USA is cleared. Then they will head out there and that's typically where we have to drain the pipeline, pump it out, crawl inside the pipeline

00;22;35;07 - 00;22;37;22
Speaker 2
and make the proper repairs.

00;22;38;04 - 00;22;41;02
Speaker 1
And these pipelines we're talking about, about how big are they?

00;22;41;17 - 00;22;59;01
Speaker 2
Anywhere from what? We have smaller pvc lines out of Delhi area, but most of ours are 24 to 36 inch is kind of the average 30 and 36 is the most common. They crawl in there and have to have a confined space training, stuff like that.

00;22;59;01 - 00;23;01;04
Speaker 2
And it's not a very exciting job.

00;23;01;21 - 00;23;11;02
Speaker 1
It sounds like a very exciting job and one that I would not ever want to be crawling around in that kind of confined space. So glad we have guys on the on the team that will do that.

00;23;12;19 - 00;23;20;08
Speaker 2
And then also heavy equipment. We might be building banks and stuff. Some of the capital projects that we can do with the system full.

00;23;21;13 - 00;23;39;23
Speaker 1
All right. So that's the regular maintenance work that, you know, needs to be done and that can, to a certain extent, be scheduled ahead of time. But as with any system as well used as ours, even with the extensive amount of work you guys do to maintain the system, there is always emergency work that comes up.

00;23;40;04 - 00;23;41;27
Speaker 1
Can you describe some of these situations?

00;23;42;12 - 00;23;56;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. So none of our structures are bulletproof. You know, some of these automatic the stuff will get stuck in there at times. You actually have vandalism. People mess with them. So when you get that and it backs up water, we've had over toppings, we've had canal breaks.

00;23;57;13 - 00;24;10;24
Speaker 2
One of the big ones that we had back, I want to say, around 2013, the main canal, it dropped five. It actually laminated the existing gunite and then it ended up taking out the concrete lining and eating away at the bank.

00;24;11;04 - 00;24;20;10
Speaker 2
Luckily, we were able to react quick and get rip wrap in there and get it. Save to hold through the till winter time. But that could have been a big problem.

00;24;21;04 - 00;24;35;09
Speaker 1
Definitely. And then in 2017, we experienced multiple high precipitation storms to the point that TID had to activate the emergency spillway at Don Pedro Reservoir. What role did construction and maintenance play in that event?

00;24;36;01 - 00;24;47;10
Speaker 2
So there was actually quite a bit, obviously starting up there. We wanted to remove bumps, flat road itself so that we didn't get all that debris into the river. But once the water goes down there, it's coming down through our system.

00;24;47;10 - 00;24;59;09
Speaker 2
So we worked with water distribution to get it through the system it would run. Also, we got water coming in from Mustang Creek, Sand Creek, any of the hills that drain off. Plus all our local cities, as we talked about earlier.

00;25;00;04 - 00;25;11;12
Speaker 2
We had guys out there patrolling the levee, operating Gomes lake. They had the same setup as during the irrigation season. You they got overtopping and washouts and stuff like that we had to watch for.

00;25;11;23 - 00;25;24;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, that was definitely an all hands on deck type of event. And I'm sure you guys were very busy throughout. All right. So we've talked a lot today about construction and maintenance work on the water side of the house.

00;25;24;24 - 00;25;30;16
Speaker 1
But there's also a lot of support that your teams provide for the power side as well. What can you tell us about that?

00;25;31;11 - 00;25;52;27
Speaker 2
We work with pretty much every different department here at TID. Some of the most common ones would be for the line side. We do a lot of transformer swap outs with the crane or boom truck. We've helped substations, building substations themselves remove concrete and different stuff for the line side driveways, such where you got power running underground

00;25;53;09 - 00;25;58;10
Speaker 2
. If there's an electrical burn off or emergency, you know, middle of the night or whatever, we'll come out with backhoes and assist.

00;25;59;03 - 00;26;19;17
Speaker 1
Very good. I know last year in 2021, the line department was working on swapping out some underground vaults in Patterson. And I know that, you know, typically these aren't located in the most convenient places to get to. So I know construction and maintenance was working hand in hand with them on that job to access some of these

00;26;19;17 - 00;26;20;10
Speaker 1
underground vaults.

00;26;20;18 - 00;26;37;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, actually, we had two different crews out there. We had the backhoe out for digging out the old redwood vaults. We replaced them with concrete and we had a patch crew coming in and help patching the lids after the line side ran all the wires and then along with that, you got to fix the property that most

00;26;37;09 - 00;26;41;16
Speaker 2
of these were in between people's driveways. So replacing grass, sidewalks such as that.

00;26;41;29 - 00;26;45;15
Speaker 1
Making it look just as good, if not better than when we got there.

00;26;45;15 - 00;26;46;05
Speaker 2
Right, exactly.

00;26;46;18 - 00;27;01;16
Speaker 1
Very good. All right. I think one thing that our listeners might not know about TID it is that we have a history of of building even a lot of our bigger projects in-house. The lateral eight regulating reservoir is a great example of that.

00;27;01;23 - 00;27;03;05
Speaker 1
What can you tell us about that project?

00;27;03;19 - 00;27;25;19
Speaker 2
Yeah, that was all done in-house in 2015. They actually piloted a smaller reservoir to see if this would work. It worked out great for us. The following winter, we went ahead and expanded the pilot. One was contracted out, but the expansion was done by TID staff, expanding to 25 acres and 130 acre feet of storage.

00;27;26;00 - 00;27;37;18
Speaker 2
This was a great project for us as we hadn't had anything this big in a long time. We were able to run paddle scrapers, move the dirt. Actually, we poured the concrete. We did everything from top to bottom.

00;27;37;25 - 00;27;47;08
Speaker 2
The only part we actually had contracted out at that time was our pump structures. Just because our construction crew was out building drops and trying to do the automation and lateral eight itself.

00;27;48;02 - 00;28;01;13
Speaker 1
Very good. A lot a lot of work on the project, a lot to get done. And I believe if I'm correct, that was the first reservoir that had been built by district staff since TID Built old Don Pedro in 1923.

00;28;01;24 - 00;28;02;04
Speaker 2
Correct

00;28;02;17 - 00;28;09;18
Speaker 1
Right on. We mentioned the fleet and fabrication team earlier. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, that group?

00;28;10;16 - 00;28;24;29
Speaker 2
Yes. So they joined us here a couple of months back into the C&M department. We have two welders over there that can fabricate pretty much anything that we've done so much in-house. They helped expand a substation this last year.

00;28;25;10 - 00;28;44;08
Speaker 2
They built multiple walkways for the canal system, help building truck beds or making modifications to our equipment. Almost everything here is fabricated in-house as far as the fleet side. Those guys, it's anything from a simple generator to a 70 ton crane.

00;28;44;20 - 00;28;53;25
Speaker 2
They're constantly busy with repair calls or general service DOT inspections. You name it, they they pretty much handle it all.

00;28;54;07 - 00;29;00;28
Speaker 1
And if you had to guess about how many different pieces of equipment are the fleet and fabrication guys maintaining?

00;29;01;13 - 00;29;04;04
Speaker 2
I believe the last lists were somewhere around the 890 mark.

00;29;04;14 - 00;29;15;21
Speaker 1
Wow, that's a lot. Okay, so as we kick off the new year, TID has some really exciting projects to look forward to that I know construction maintenance is going to be heavily involved in. What can you tell us about those?

00;29;16;25 - 00;29;33;11
Speaker 2
So there's a Ceres main regulating reservoir, just like the lateral eight one that we did. Except this one is actually going to be a 38 acre piece of property with a 225 acre foot storage. We're hoping to start that off in August.

00;29;33;27 - 00;29;49;00
Speaker 2
The La Grange tailrace we have a project going up there with dam safety to go ahead and reshape and gunite that and then we also have the Harding fish green. This past year we completed in August the Neilson Fish Green that help keep the salmon out of our system.

00;29;49;11 - 00;29;51;17
Speaker 2
And we're going to hopefully start this one in May.

00;29;52;05 - 00;29;59;29
Speaker 1
And on that La Grange tailrace job, I think there are some unique challenges that come with that because of the location of the work. Is that right?

00;30;00;20 - 00;30;12;07
Speaker 2
Yeah. The biggest challenge for us is going to be access to the actual job site. We have to contend with a substation and overhead lines, but also our path to get in there is limited by the height underneath the pin stocks.

00;30;12;21 - 00;30;24;29
Speaker 2
So we have an opening of about nine foot high and 11 wide, which doesn't give us very much access for heavy equipment such as our D six or our 330 excavator. So we're going to have to downsize and rent different equipment than what we actually own.

00;30;25;25 - 00;30;44;13
Speaker 1
Okay. Very good. So we've covered a lot of territory today with regards to construction and maintenance and and what roles fall into that group. Everything that you guys are capable of doing, which is quite a bit. Is there anything else that we haven't touched on yet that you wanted to add?

00;30;45;04 - 00;30;59;10
Speaker 2
Nothing else really. To add, I just want to thank you for giving us the time to come in and represent the C&M department. There's not really a project that goes on around here that we don't have a part of in one way, shape or form.

00;30;59;15 - 00;31;13;03
Speaker 2
Whether it would be dirt work on a project is getting built or facilities or even maintaining it afterwards. We have actually a very special group of guys that are very talented, and I appreciate you giving us the time to come talk about it.

00;31;13;07 - 00;31;32;25
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Well, I think it's fascinating to learn of all the talent that we do have here at the district and how much goes into maintaining the system, whether it's the irrigation system or supporting the power side or even just the the building we're recording in right now that you guys do a lot to to just make

00;31;32;25 - 00;31;40;14
Speaker 1
sure that that's operational every day. So we certainly appreciate the effort. All right, Chris, thanks so much for joining us.

00;31;40;25 - 00;31;41;08
Speaker 2
Thank you.

00;31;42;15 - 00;31;59;18
Speaker 1
Thank you for tuning in to the TID water and Power podcast. You can find it on Facebook at Facebook.com/TurlockID on Instagram and Twitter at TurlockID and on LinkedIn as the Turlock Irrigation District. I'm your host, Constance Anderson.

00;31;59;24 - 00;32;01;03
Speaker 1
We'll see you again next time.