We'll Drink to That!

A ribbon-cutting, tours and a very special toast ushered in a new era for Pasadena Water and Power Oct. 20 when the groundwater treatment plant at Monk Hill was celebrated with a grand opening. The project is cleaning perchlorate and other compounds from four City of Pasadena water wells near JPL that were contaminated by volatile compounds from rocket fuel that was was dumped into pits after World War II and leached into the ground over the years.

Left to right in the photo above are California Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, PWP Principal Water Engineer Gary Takara, PWP Water Engineering Manager Brad Boman, Mayor Bill Bogaard, NASA Facilities and Environmental Manager Steve Slaten, EPA Superfund Director Jane Diamond, NASA Strategic Infrastructure Manager Olga Dominguez and PWP General Manager Phyllis Currie.

It was the culmination of more than 10 years of partnership among the City of Pasadena, NASA, EPA and other agencies to bring the project to fruition.


The event included tours of the treatment plant as well as the adjacent Windsor Reservoir (that's Brad Boman in the photo below leading a tour inside the reservoir).


Here are more photos from the celebration:










Many thanks to Eric Reed for the photos.

Out My Front Door

Yesterday morning when I opened my front door to go to work, the air was so crisp and clean, the grass was so green from the rains and the mountain was so beautiful that I quickly took out my camera and snapped a shot.

I live in an 1,100-square-foot house on a 10,000-square-foot lot, and the house is set all the way at the back of the property. All of the properties on my block are zoned R-2 (two residential structures per parcel), but mine is a rare one that doesn't have a second house on it.

That allows for the park-like yard with the huge sycamore and two Deodar cedars all lined in a row, with the mountain as a backdrop.

I don't know when the trees were planted, but they're definitely mature. The house was built in 1922.


Over the 20 years I've lived here, some friends and neighbors have pressed me to build a duplex in front of my house as an income property. But then my view would be the back side of a duplex. And the cedars would have to go.

I work long hours, and sitting on my front porch every morning to sip tea and enjoy the view is a big part of my quality of life.

I water some plants but I almost never water my lawn. It's pretty big, so watering is an expensive proposition. Therefore, thankfully, my water bill from PWP is very low.

Hey, remember that Pasadena's cool-season lawn and landscape watering schedule kicks in on Monday, Nov. 1. It's a mandatory cutback! More info here.


UPDATE: I shot this photo at 7:00 this morning when I was sipping tea on one of the rocking chairs on my front porch. This view, or the back side of a duplex? I'll take this one.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Scullery Captain* wins with his/her 12:27 p.m. Tuesday guess "Trash/debris being collected to be burned in the City's Power Plant on Glenarm(?)."

In the photo above, shot in 1933, rubbish is piled up at the new incinerator operated by Pasadena's Municipal Light and Power Department (now called Pasadena Water and Power, or PWP).

It was one of Pasadena's first attempts at recycling.

From PWP's book "100 Years of Community-Owned Power":

Long before the era of landfills and waste disposal systems, Pasadena faced what a 1930s Municipal Light and Power annual report called a "rubbish condition," with combustible rubbish unpleasantly burned in open pits, causing smoke to drift over the region. At one point the City used an incinerator on Raymond Avenue north of Glenarm Street, but it became obsolete. So, the City turned to Municipal Light and Power to design and construct a rubbish-burning incinerator adjacent to the Glenarm Power Plant.

Built by department employees primarily using equipment discarded from the power plant, the incinerator -- designed to handle one hundred tons of rubbish per day in either of its two furnaces -- began operation in November 1933. Besides correcting "a perplexing situation which caused the general city considerable concern," as Municipal Light and Power's 1934-35 annual report noted, the incinerator saved Pasadena taxpayers about $11,000 annually.

Department employees developed the incinerator with the plan to convert the disposed-of waste material into steam power for feedwater heating at the Glenarm Power Plant. Though some challenges ensued, it worked. Enough steam was produced to equal one barrel of fuel oil for each three tons of rubbish burned, and the byproduct obtained from the steam during the burning operation was used in the plant.

The incinerator continued to operate over the years, and when the City placed a ban on the backyard burning of combustible materials in 1957, the department expanded the incinerator's capacity to 250 tons per day, with some refuse delivered by City employees in a new backyard pickup program.

For the department's power plant employees, having the incinerator on-site definitely had its perks. Retiree Herman "Tex" Romine recalled dairy trucks bringing in partially thawed but packaged ice cream that hadn't sold to dump in the incinerator. "Everybody would come over and get all the ice cream they could. We had free ice cream for a week or so," he said, adding that employees with fireplaces also got plenty of firewood; in fact they never ran out of it in winter.

But the supply of free ice cream and firewood couldn't last forever. In 1965, Pasadena's Engineering Street Department decided to take rubbish to the Scholl Canyon Disposal Area instead, which reduced the income from the incinerator. The department ceased operating the incinerator on January 1, 1967, and then demolished the equipment to prepare the land for other uses, ending yet another colorful chapter in the department's history.

* SC, please e-mail me at aerdman@cityofpasadena.net and I'll tell you about your fabulous prize!

The Heat is On!

Are you following the spring/summer watering rules for Pasadena? It's mandatory!

If you live in Pasadena, learn more about how to conserve water on your property during our free H2O Academy for Savvy Water Savers on Saturday, June 12, from 9 a.m. to noon. Register here.

Groundbreakings Aren't as Boring as They Sound!

I’ve always said that from a media perspective, groundbreaking ceremonies are right up there with ribbon cuttings and check presentations.

Newspapers rarely dispatch photographers to these kinds of events, so I take lots of photos and send them to media with captions after the fact.

Some print them, some don't.

My work is complete on our most recent groundbreaking ceremony on March 17, so here are a few photos for your viewing pleasure.

First, this is all about cleaning up four wells in the Monk Hill area of Pasadena, in that funky "index finger" area at the top of District 1 in Northwest Pasadena.

It's an interesting challenge setting up for such an event in the middle of a big empty space.

Thankfully I wasn't in charge of logistics! That was staff from Pasadena Water and Power.

I had the entire event videotaped, and I asked my KPAS crew to get a few interviews in advance to edit into the program.

Here's our city manager, Michael Beck, on camera. That's Stuart Johnson doing the interview and Michelle Maglionico behind the camera.


I'm expecting a final version in the next day or two, and then we'll put it on KPAS.

Pasadena Water and Power staff provided educational information to the many people who attended.




People visited for a while...

..and then the ceremony began. Mayor Bill Bogaard served as master of ceremonies.


District 1 Councilwoman Jacque Robinson presented a certificate of appreciation to Tecumseh Shackelford, a neighborhood leader.

Ta-dah!


Dig (no pun intended) the Brady Bunch grass.

Left to right: Steve Slaten, NASA's project manager on groundwater cleanup; Keith Takata, director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program for Region 9 (Pacific Southwest); City Councilwoman Jacque Robinson; Dr. James Wright of NASA; Mayor Bill Bogaard; and Phyllis Currie, general manager of Pasadena Water and Power.

The area is surrounded by residential neighborhoods, which will be affected by the construction.

To help shield neighbors' view of the project, evergreen trees have been planted and green-screen fence installed all around the project.

Here's the view from the street.


This is a great example of intergovernmental cooperation: NASA and the City of Pasadena have worked closely together on site selection and design of the treatment plant with support from the EPA, California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and California Department of Public Health.

NASA is funding construction and operating costs; the City of Pasadena will own and operate the plant.

A contract for construction has been awarded and completion is anticipated in late 2010.

We'll keep you posted!

Mystery History -- Solved

Margaret wins! I have emailed her about her fabulous prize.

The photo was taken inside Pasadena's steam plant many decades ago when everything was mechanical. This worker is cranking a wheel to turn up the heat to boil the water to create the steam to rush through the pipes to spin the turbines to generate the electricity.

It's all digital now.

The Season Has Officially Begun

Don't listen to the department stores that put out their Christmas trees and other holiday decorations before Halloween every year.

The season really, truly begins with the tree-lighting ceremony at Pasadena City Hall!

The festivities took place tonight at 5:30 p.m. in the grand entrance, where more than 100 people had gathered.

The event kicked off with the McKinley After-school Chorus under the direction of Robin Turrentine. They were just great!

Mayor Bill Bogaard is out of town, so Vice Mayor Steve Haderlein did the honors. He flipped the switch that turned the tree from plain...

...to brightly lit.
Hundreds and hundreds of LED lights were donated by Pasadena Water and Power. They use only 10% of the energy that incandescent tree lights use, and they don't put out any heat whatsoever.

A lot of people brought unwrapped gifts to put in the Pasadena Fire Department's Spark of Love boxes for needy children and teens.

Drive by some night when you're in the neighborhood. The tree, in all its glory, is spectacular!

Water Conservation -- Take Action Now!

News flash -- The public hearing at City Council regarding proposed penalties for water wasters will be postponed to Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m.

It is listed as Sept. 8 in the hard copy version of Pasadena In Focus. We have updated the website version to reflect Sept. 22 (see "Take Action Now!").

Many thanks to photographer extraordinaire Erica Rolufs of Pasadena Water and Power for shooting the photo!

Love Thy Neighbor. . .

I love my neighbors. Most of us on our little block know each other pretty well and look out for each other's properties and kids and animals. We run into each other on the sidewalk and in the yard and on the porch and across the fence.

It's a bit of a schizophrenic neighborhood, and I'm not talking about the people! We live on Atchison Street between Hill and Sierra Bonita, right on the city/county line, so the north side of the street is unincorporated county and the south side of the street is -- well, it depends. Some properties on the south side are in the Pasadena city limits and some aren't!

The street itself is under the jurisdiction of the county, so even residents who are in the city limits have to get animal licenses from the county, have to have trash picked up by a private hauler, etc. The north side has Southern California Edison and the south side -- even those not in the city limits -- have Pasadena Water and Power (our PWP bills are less expensive than Edison, which is a plus!).

There's one thing that we can all agree on and will show up for, and that's Neighborhood Wine Night every few months. It's really a glorified potluck that's hosted each time by a different household. The host chooses the wine theme -- Cabernet, Chardonnay, French Burgundy, Champagne, whatever -- and everybody brings a bottle. During the course of the evening, we eat lots of food, catch up with each other's lives, have a sing-along and enjoy the wine. Nobody has to get in a car and drive, so it all works out. Nobody ever gets drunk. It's very civilized!

We had Neighborhood Wine Night last Saturday. The battery for my digital camera was dead and the charger was at my office at City Hall, so I had to use my Treo to take photos. Not the best option but it was all I had.

Here are a couple to give you an idea:

While still daylight, here's Ana Carpenter (left), Thelma Reyna, who many people know because she's a retired teacher and principal and taught at PHS for many years, and Ana's husband Lloyd. Thelma's husband Victor is also a retired high school teacher. He was there somewhere!



Then it gets dark and my Treo, which doesn't have a flash, takes very grainy photos but they are what they are.

That's George and Zebeda. George's wife Arpi and Zebeda's husband Remy were at the party somewhere! George is from Lebanon, Zebeda is from Algeria, Arpi is Armenian from Lebanon and Remy is from Poland and grew up in France. We're a very diverse neighborhood! Lots of distinctive accents.



And then it gets darker so here's one more but I won't make y'all suffer through this any longer!

That's Dwight Torigian on the right, his wife Maro with her back to us, and Betsy in the middle. Dwight is half British and half Armenian, Maro is Armenian from Lebanon and Betsy is a not-so-average American whose day job is at a bank but whose passion is acting. She does live theater and has been in a few TV commercials that you've probably seen.



Many others were there but the shots are just too dark and grainy to serve the purpose here.



I must send a shout-out to Arie, who used to live next door to me and now lives a few blocks away but still comes to Neighborhood Wine Night. He's from Holland and is planning a trip "home" next month. He used to work for PBS and now teaches at PCC.

Yes, I love my neighbors. We eat, sing, laugh, drink vino and gab. A lot.