Portrait
Water Operations Metro Property Management: LADWP’s Maintainers and Sustainers
By Albert Rodriguez and Emily Rose Oachs
LADWP’s Water System contains hundreds of assets and installations such as reservoirs, tanks, pump stations, treatment facilities, groundwater wells, and other non-operational properties to support the Department’s 681,000 water customers. This infrastructure requires regular maintenance, repairs, and refurbishment to ensure upkeep, operability, and long service life. In the L.A. area, these properties can range as far north as Sylmar and all the way south to San Pedro, totaling 250 facilities and 7,500 acres of land. The team responsible for managing these vast assets is the Water Operations Division Metro - Property Management. They’re a multi-faceted team full of talented, hard-working, problem-solving employees communicating about issues and challenges, coordinating plans, and executing effective solutions every day.
A day’s work for a team with such a wide-ranging territory is as varied as the terrain the employees manage. Structures like pump station buildings need recoating, repainting, or re-roofing. Occasionally, underwater drones are used to perform inspections at water storage tanks and reservoirs. Weed abatement and removal of unauthorized dumping helps keep up property grounds, while buildings themselves may require graffiti removal, clearing of gutters and drains, or even sandbag placement in preparation for an incoming storm. On hillside properties, construction teams may work to install retaining walls and improve drainage to ensure slope stability and mitigate potential hillside erosion. Coordination of the team's fleet guarantees that maintenance and construction crews have access to the more than 400 vehicles and equipment—including sedans, vans, mowers, street sweepers, welder trucks, forklifts, and backhoes—that are integral for performing their work.
“Our group is responsible for a lot of important duties and necessary actions and processes that need to happen to keep the Water System going. Maintenance might not be glamorous, but it’s our group that takes ownership and performs the critical work to keep an asset or property maintained, reducing liability and risk to the Department.”
Richard A. Winter, Construction & Maintenance Supervisor
Regular maintenance also improves safety by helping to identify and address potential hazards, keeping employees and visitors safe. It also provides better asset performance in the long term by ensuring that property elements maintain their functionality and have an extended lifespan. In short, Metro Property Management provides the stability, consistency, and continuity that an organization as large as LADWP needs.
Beyond essential maintenance and construction, Metro Property Management employees serve as the guardians of Water System properties, managing their access and use. The team coordinates real estate agreements to allow other entities to place equipment on Department land or operate properties for public use—as with the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Recreation and Parks running the Silver Lake Meadows recreation park on a portion of Silver Lake Reservoir land. Requests for filming at Water System sites, such as the Franklin Canyon Reservoir complex and Mulholland Memorial Fountain, also are trafficked through Property Management, and the team has provided support for community events hosted on its land, like this year’s Women’s Nature Walk held at Encino Reservoir.
Places like the Chatsworth Nature Preserve, Hollywood Reservoir, and other open-space areas require more than just basic upkeep. Thoughtful work procedures are necessary to preserve and enhance the land’s biodiversity, which is also important. To that end, Property Management has installed water guzzlers that supply drinking water to local wildlife, planted pollinator gardens using California native plants, and installed raptor poles to create landing and hunting perches for birds of prey. It’s a delicate balancing act of being sustainable and protecting the land, plants, and wildlife, while also fulfilling the Department’s core mission of safe, reliable, and resilient water services.
That mission lies at the heart of the team’s activities. In particular, it fuels the team’s responsibility to ensure compliance on environmental permits relating to Water System properties and functions. For the team, ensuring that the Department follows proper procedures for the handling and storage of hazardous substances not only means that it is in accordance with environmental regulations. It also protects Angelenos’ access to reliable drinking water as well as the health and safety of LADWP employees and L.A.’s environment, communities, and citizens.
“On any given day we can be dealing with multiple challenges, such as issues with a reservoir’s floating cover, an encampment, brush clearing to prevent wildfires, storm clean-up, or even a special request from the Mayor’s Office. We do more than just manage properties and conduct maintenance of our facilities; we’re also environmental stewards of the land LADWP owns.”
Helen G. Olivares, Managing Water Utility Engineer
Careers
In a time where trades careers are challenged with recruiting or maintaining their workforce, it’s important to appreciate the work that Metro Property Management undertakes every day. Work crews never shy away from any challenge, including the complex task of cleaning up the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant during its annual maintenance shutdown.
The job classifications within the team cover a wide spectrum, including clerical positions, engineers, environmental specialists, painters, plumbers, building repairers, maintenance and construction helpers, carpenters, gardeners, and mechanical repairers. For more information about job opportunities, visit JoinLADWP.com.
Metro Property Management Team
Managing Water Utility Engineer: Helen G. Olivares
Construction & Maintenance Supervisors: Richard D. Winter, CMS-A, Dean J. Gallina, CMS-C
Waterworks Engineer: Ritchie S. Yee
Administrative Clerk: Raquel A. Stevenson
Labor Supervisors: Manuel A. Martinez, Timothy J. Fitch
Building Repair Supervisor: Eddie K. Weber
Building Repairers: Jeffery D. Huffman, Jonathan L. Gritzner, Juan C. Garcia Gomez, Omar A. Solorio
Painter Supervisor: Eduardo Garcia
Senior Painter: David K. Carlsson
Painters: Adrian C. Orduno Perez, Alfred E. Medina Jr., Brad W. Sapolsky, Paul Arroyo II
Carpenters: Richard C. Strong, Rick Schadler, Samuel Graham
Equipment Operators: Aaron Ray, Guadalupe Estrada Jr., Ismael Hernandez. Philip J. Loera
Mechanical Repairer: Joshua S. Galvez
Maintenance and Construction Helpers: Agustin L. Noverola Jr., Angelo N. River, Charles J. Joines, Eduardo Herrera, Ernesto J. Barrera, Gerardo I. Lopez, Gerardo Gatez Sr., Jaime Gonzales, Jesse Ruiz, Joseph G. Jacobson, Juan G. Elizalde, Juan J. Corez, Randall K. Nimura, Richard H. Leon, Terry N. Osier
Plumbers: Charles J. Messer, Rudy Lopez
Senior Gardeners: Carlos S. Arreola, Jose D. De La Mora, Mark C. Yates, Michael A. Wheeler, Philip J. Gilmartin
Civil Engineering Associates III: Hamilton Ching, Andrea N. Yip
Civil Engineering Associates II: Allison Tsau, Andrew J. Kim, Antony K. Karongo, Elena A. Gary, Jahayra I. Gastelum, Susan Briasco
Mechanical Engineering Associate II: Emmanuel Reynoso
Environmental Supervisor: Edward Y. Kim
Environmental Specialist: Stefan Sadeli
