Water czar hardly wet behind the ears
Mike Malone: 'It's the people's system'
Mike Malone was like everyone else. And he’d be the first to admit it.
“You take it for granted that when you turn the tap on, the water is safe to drink, you take as much as you want and you don’t worry about it,” Malone said.
That took an about face when Malone got into the business of water following his stint with the U.S. Navy. Malone worked water pipe repairs. He read water meters. He worked water treatment. And was inspector. And after 20 years with the San Jose Water Company, he became water systems distribution superintendent for the city of Sacramento.
Now, with 120 employees under him, Malone has been Vallejo’s Water Director since April, 2017.
He doesn’t take water for granted. Not any more. Not knowing that water-borne illnesses kills roughly 3.5 million people a year, according to the World Health Organization.
“When you get into this industry, you find out there’s a whole network and efforts behind the scenes each and every day to make sure that when you put that water in your glass you’re not going to get sick, you’re not going
to die, and you’re not going to have any issues,” Malone said.
Malone took a break Wednesday for a 30-minute Zoom interview, joined by Roger Judy of water conservation, Beth Schoenberger, water dept. operations manager, Melissa Cansdale, associate engineer, and Allison Mattioli, communication and special projects.
It is, Malone emphasized, a team effort.
“We take pride in the fact that we provide an essential service to the communities that we work in. We don’t wear a badge. We don’t have a uniform on,” he said. “But the service we provide is just as important and in some cases maybe more important than what police and and fire does.”
Yes, said Malone, “we provide drinking water. But it’s more than we just provide drinking water. There’s a regulatory environment we have to live with and comply with. It takes a lot of us to get water from the source to the tap and make sure that it’s safe to drink.”
Just as Malone “never gave it a second thought” pondering that glass of water until he took his first industry job, “I never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing today,” he said. “I never sat down, put down a roadmap that I would become director of a water agency. I got into this by accident.”
A happy accident at that. Mostly.
“The best part of my job is seeing the plans put into place and we start doing what we promise we’re going to do and see people happy and committed to making
those things happen,” Malone said.
Conversely, “dealing with personnel issues,” is the job’s down side, he said.
“No one likes when you have to meet someone because they’ve done something that resulted in a decision to discipline them or even terminate them,” he said. “You can’t turn a blind eye. You can’t say it was OK. You have to take appropriate steps. Everyone needs to know you’re going to maintain that standard you talk about.”
It’s a standard that went awry to the people in Flint, Mich. in its water crisis that began in 2014 with illnesses, mostly from leady pipes.
“My honest opinion is that they didn’t do their job. I’ll just say that,” Malone said. “When I talk about the industry and how important it is that we have a responsibility to deliver the best service, I don’t cut corners. The product we put out, I want to make sure we’re making the best investments.”
Bottom line, said Malone, what’s happened in Flint “won’t happen here.”
Neither will a water shortage. At least not in the foreseeable future, he said.
“Everyone’s water rights are different. In this county, we probably have the best water rights of all the agencies,” Malone said. “When we look back at the drought we just came out of in 2015, we still had plenty of water to meet our demand. That’s what I was told. Still had sufficient water from Lake Berryessa when the state curtailed water from the delta. Right now, we aren’t in a place where we’re overly concerned just yet. If we did run into another drought, we do have ordinances in place where we can say, ‘Hey, you have to reduce your consumption’ so
we still can provide essential services.”
It’s too early to fret the lack of rainfall this winter, Malone said.
“No one’s come out and said, ‘We’re in a drought.’ I think we’re all watching the snowpack and rain,” he said. “We need a few more storms like we got (Tuesday) night and we’ll be OK. We need the ground to get saturated. If the storm stays through the weekend, it’s going to be a huge help.”
Malone said experiencing a dry spell is an eye-opener.
“After going through the last drought, it’s hard not to gain an appreciation for water and how precious it actually is,” he said.
An ongoing “challenge that we’re trying to address is replacing aging pipes that could be 100 years old, Malone acknowledged, with the recent water rate increases earmarked in part for pipe replacement.
“When I look at rates and take care of the infrastructure, I have to remind myself and remind the community that in the end, it’s their system,” Malone said. “We’re not trying to fix this in five years. We need to take a long-term approach that’s sustainable for the community and deliver what we promise.”
After all these years in the business, Malone said he’s learned to not take the job home. Usually.
“I’ll say I’ve gotten better,” he said. “I’m always kind of at work. I’ll go on vacation and my wife is like, ‘You’re not going to take your laptop are you?’ Or we’ll be up at Tahoe and I’m on the cell working emails and my son says, ‘Dad, dad … you’re on vacation.’ But if I’m out five days and I’m not on top of my emails, it takes three to four weeks to catch up.”