District celebrates completion of pump station’s second power source

By Karen Brainard

In a dedication ceremony Nov. 25, Ramona Municipal Water District directors, staff, independent contractors and a few residents celebrated the completion of the Poway Pump Station Secondary Power Source Project and heard the start-up of the new Waukesha gas-powered engine.

“We’ve been working on this project a long time,” board president Darrell Beck said before the group headed out to the pump station site near Blue Sky Reserve on Espola Road in Poway.

The significance of the $2 million project means that, if there is an electrical power outage such as that which occurred during the 2007 Witch Creek Fire and the September 2011 San Diego Gas & Electric regional blackout, operation of the pumps can be switched remotely from electricity to gas so treated water can be pumped up the hill to Ramona.

That wasn’t the case during the 2007 wildfire when water could not be pumped to Ramona from in Poway for about five days.

“And people were really angry,” said Beck, who lost his house in that fire. That situation motivated him to run for the water board once his house was rebuilt, he said, so he could try to improve fire safety and water reliability.

David Barnum, the water district’s general manager, said the concept of adding a second power source to the station, built in 1958, dates back about 30 years.

“It’s one that has spanned the gamut,” he said, noting that other ideas included installing a generator, wind turbines or solar.

An added benefit of the natural gas engine is possible energy savings for the district, because the pumps can operate on gas power during peak electrical times.

Barnum commended Mike Metts and Ricardo Soto with Dudek Engineering, which contracts with the district to provide engineering services.

“Mike and Ricardo were able to take a concept...and make it a doable functional project,” said Barnum. “It was a monumental task just to get the concept approved.”

To accomplish the project, which broke ground in April, the district and construction crews faced several challenges. Because of the pump station’s location, the district had to work with the City of Poway, Blue Sky Reserve, California Fish and Wildlife, County of San Diego and San Diego Gas & Electric, which has a natural gas line running down Espola Road in Poway, about two miles from the pump station.

In identifying the contractors and construction team, Barnum said, “All these folks worked very well as a team. And this wasn’t an easy project.”

The project included trenching in the district’s easement for approximately 3,700 feet of 4-inch gas pipeline, working with environmental groups, constructing a retaining wall 18 feet high at the hilly pump site and creating a larger pad, building a raised enclosure to house the 16-cylinder engine at a specified height, and engineering design to keep the motor cool and reduce its noise of operation.

With the addition of the block retaining wall, district staff said square footage of the pad was increased to allow for a second gas engine in the future.

“This project is about ingenuity,” Barnum said.

Property tax revenues funded the project.

Director Joe Zenovic credited Barnum for initiating and seeing the job completed while Beck and Barnum thanked the community for its support.

“I have yet to hear anything negative about the Poway Pump Station Project,” said Barnum.

Among contractors working on the project were T.C. Construction Company Inc. of Santee and Atom Engineering Construction of Hemet.