City's water manager to speak at Monday's Democratic luncheon

Speaking at Monday's Democratic luncheon will be Andy Hummel, PE, manager of water and wastewater utilities at Carson City Public Works. He will provide an overview of city's water, wastewater, and stormwater utilities, touching on those systems' history, operations, quality control and growth capacity, as well as current and future projects that may be of interest to the general public.

Andy Hummel graduated from the University of Nevada-Reno in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. During his studies, he worked as a lab and field technician at Westec in Winnemucca, conducting geotechnical testing and field inspections. He also worked in motorcycle sales and repair at Reno Motor Sports.

Andy's first job out of college was as a geotechnical lab tech at Black Eagle Consulting. From there he moved on to a civil engineering position at Thiel Engineering in Reno. For five and a half years he worked there on land development projects, water rights, and public works design.

In 2004 Andy moved over to the public sector, taking a job with the City of Sparks, where he stayed for over 14 years, initially as a civil engineer, later as a utility manager. While there, he taught two summer session classes in Urban Engineering (CE428) at the University of Nevada-Reno.

In October 2018 Andy was hired by Carson City Public Works as Wastewater Utility Manager. He has remained in that position until this month, when he assumed responsibility for of all aspects of Carson City's water utilities.

Carson City’s water distribution system consists of 350 miles of water mains, numerous isolation valves, and 4,200 fire hydrants. The Distribution Division maintains the system’s water mains, valves and hydrants, and the City's portion of the service line, which is up to and including the water meter, as well as responding to system and customer emergencies.

The Production Division maintains the Quill Water Treatment Plant, Arsenic Treatment Plant, 14 booster pump stations, 15 storage tanks, 56 pressure regulating stations separating 21 pressure zones, three separate interconnections with Lyon and Douglas Counties, and 30 groundwater wells to ensure efficient operations and an adequate supply of water.

The Production staff manages the conjunctive use of the City’s surface and groundwater supplies to maintain quality and quantity of the City’s various supplies. Staff administers Aquifer Storage and Recover on a number of wells and surface water recharge programs in order to improve the health of our precious ground water table for future generations.

Meter Division personnel are the front-line to customer service for the water meters. They are responsible for collecting meter readings and repairing/installing water meters. The staff utilizes a hand-held computer and a radio transceiver in a meter reading truck to collect and store data, also known as Automatic Meter Infrastructure. Other duties include maintenance of meter boxes, water meter turn-on and turn-offs for new customers, maintenance and repair, and responding to customer emergencies.

The Carson City Water System has a unidirectional distribution system flushing program that is carried out in the south and east areas of town each spring. Here's some useful info about the flushing and discolored water:

It removes discolored water, water with lower chlorine residual, and water containing higher disinfection by products. Flushing refreshes the system’s water from the low water demand months. Flushing moves out the sediments which collect in areas of low water use or flow, and dead ends. These sediments can cause taste, odor, and color problems.

Flushing is critical to the overall preventive maintenance program of a distribution system and ensures proper operation of distribution system hydrants and valves. Distribution system flushing also allows operators to test and ensure that fire hydrants are operational and have sufficient water pressure for firefighting. Flushing helps prolong the useful life of the system, by scouring out excess build up that can cause reduced water flow, valve malfunctions, and pipe deterioration.

Even in drought conditions, flushing is a necessary part of maintaining our water distribution system and the quality of the water within it. Fortunately, the water flushed from the mains in the distribution system accounts for only a very small portion of the total water used in Carson City.

One purpose of the flushing is to remove sediments and colored materials, so the water does become discolored flowing through our pipes to move the material out of the system. We must be sure the materials that have settled in the pipes and plumbing is stirred up and
suspended in the water, thus making the water in the pipes discolored. This water may be drawn into customer’s homes. This water, though discolored and not very appealing, is not unsafe for washing and showering. It is recommended that you wait to wash light colored laundry until the discolored water has cleared to avoid staining.

Public Works does occasionally preform non-scheduled flushing, most often in response to requests from customers, such as folks on dead ends who experience discolored water build up in those dead ends. Every effort is made to notify every customer who may be affected by discolored water during the spring flushing using several methods, including notifications in local media, sign boards by roadways, and the Code Red communications system.

Much could be said about the City's storm water and wastewater systems, but this is already long enough and Andy can recite those statistics from memory given that he has honchoed most of those operations for years now. He now has so much on his plate, it's hard to see how he can even make time to come over and tell us about it. But he knows how important it is for the public to have an understanding of these complex systems, all of which have a direct impact on Carsonites' daily lives. This is our chance to meet this highly accomplished and dedicated public servant and to thank him for his continuing service to the community.

Sponsored by the Democratic Men's Committee, this event is scheduled for 1:00 PM on Monday, July 10th, and can be attended either in person at Black Bear Diner, inside Max Casino, or online via Zoom. The presentation will begin after all the lunch orders have been taken, around 1:30. Those wishing to be on distribution for luncheon Zoom links should contact Rich Dunn at richdunn@aol.com.