In this episode of the 21st Century Water podcast, Mahesh Lunani talks with Craig Miller, the general manager of the Western Municipal Water District in California. Craig brings over three decades of experience in water management, focusing on operations, engineering, and community service. He discusses the significant decisions in his career and his vision for creating a climate-resilient water system in Southern California.
Craig begins by reflecting on his career in the water industry, emphasizing the importance of his decision to enter the field. He recounts how a mentor guided him early in his career, leading him to secure vital water rights on the Santa Ana River. This 16-year journey culminated in securing 500,000 acre-feet of annual water rights for the Orange County Water District, which was a pivotal achievement in his career.
Another major decision Craig discusses is the implementation of storage programs to capture and retain water from winter storms. He shares the challenges and successes of working with the federal government to secure water conservation storage behind reservoirs initially built for flood control. These efforts, despite taking years and involving significant regulatory hurdles, have proven crucial for water management in the region.
California's recurring droughts and their impact on water supply are central themes of the discussion. Craig highlights the severe water crisis California faces, particularly during prolonged drought periods. To address this, he initiated the "Solve the Water Crisis" campaign, which has grown to include various stakeholders across the state. This initiative aims to advocate for significant investments in water infrastructure to ensure long-term water supply resilience.
Craig also talks about Western’s diverse and sophisticated water infrastructure. Initially formed to import water, Western has expanded to include wastewater treatment plants, brackish desalters, storage basins, and complex groundwater systems. By developing local water supplies and creating innovative solutions like the wholesale enterprise system, Western has enhanced water reliability and reduced costs for its customers.
Budgeting and affordability are critical issues for water agencies. Craig explains how Western is focusing on efficiency to offset the rising costs of water supply. By optimizing energy use, investing in battery storage, and improving operational strategies, Western has achieved significant cost savings. These efforts are crucial in maintaining affordability while ensuring the reliability of water services.
Circular economy principles are integral to Western's operations. Craig discusses initiatives to use water multiple times before it is discharged, emphasizing the importance of recycling and reusing water. He also underscores the need for blending traditional and innovative water management strategies to achieve a sustainable water supply.
In discussing leadership, Craig advises aspiring water leaders to embrace change, communicate effectively, and get things done. He highlights the importance of surrounding oneself with great leaders and developing a strong team. Craig's approach to leadership and his commitment to long-term water supply planning provide valuable insights for anyone in the water industry.
Craig's vision for a climate-resilient water system in Southern California involves a combination of strategic investments, innovative thinking, and collaboration across various sectors. His work demonstrates the importance of proactive planning and leadership in addressing the complex challenges of water management in the 21st century.
More information:
Western Municipal Water District: https://wmwd.com
California State Water Resources Control Board: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California: https://www.mwdh2o.com
California State Legislature - SB 366: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB366](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB366
21st Century Water - Craig Miller
Speakers: Mahesh Lunani & Craig Miller
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (00:01):
Tremendous challenges and opportunities exist right now, for our nation's water infrastructure. In this podcast, the industry's top leaders and innovative minds share their knowledge and insights for ensuring our water systems are operating safely and efficiently.
These discussions are designed to motivate and create vibrant 21st century water systems and the innovative workforce required to lead and operate them.
This is 21st Century Water with your host, Aquasight founder and CEO, Mahesh Lunani.
Mahesh Lunani (00:33):
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. In today's episode of the 21st Century Water Podcast, I'm excited to have Craig Miller, general manager of the Western Municipal Water District.
Craig brings over three decades of expertise in water management in the public sector with a deep understanding about operations, engineering, and community it serves.
While I was researching it, he's a leader that focuses on hiring the best talent and empowering them with tools and processes to deliver top service.
Prior to joining Western, he was assistant general manager at Inland Empire and was executive director at Orange County Water District. He's a registered engineer in the state of California and holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from California State University.
This episode will delve into how Craig's career in water evolved, his vision for the future of Western, and the significant decisions needed to create climate change resilient water system in Southern California.
Welcome, Craig, to a discussion of the past, the present, and the future of the water systems in the 21st century.
Craig Miller (01:44):
Thank you. It's great to be here. I love to talk water and leadership, so I really appreciate you inviting me and happy to help out wherever I can.
Mahesh Lunani (01:54):
So, you have over three decades of experience, and what struck to me is the probably big decisions you've made during these three decades. Which are the top three big decisions that have had the lasting impact in the roles you played?
Craig Miller (02:10):
I mean, if I started personally, I would say the decision to go into the water industry was a big decision. When you're growing up and going through school, no one's talking about careers in the water industry.
So, I was fortunate to get an engineering degree and kind of luckily fell into the water industry because of a friend of mine. So, I've loved it and I've been in it for 30 years, and I can't believe it's been 30 years. I'm supposed to be thinking about how to wind down now, and I keep thinking about more I can do.
So, I've loved it and I really enjoy every day working with all the people I get to work with and the industry and the regional relationships. It's just great.
When I think back about big decisions that I've made. It's hard to make individual decisions in the water industry. There's so much staff involved, and things evolve, and there's just all kinds of people.
But I go back through my career and at a fairly young age, I had a very inspirational general manager. I didn't recognize it at the time, but he was really mentoring me for leadership. And I considered myself a young baby engineer. And he said, “What do you know about water rights?”
And he called me into his office. I didn't even know why he was calling me into the office, and he said, “You need to go help us secure water rights on the Santa Ana River.” This is back when I was at Orange County Water District.
And I said, “Oh, okay.” And he said here's a three-page form from the State Water Resource Control Board. How long you think it'll take? Fill this out.” I said, “I don't know. Probably by the end of the day, I can fill out the form.”
I didn't have any idea what I was doing or getting into. And it turned into a 16-year journey. I had no idea the significance of what was going on, but the Santa Ana River, which serves about 5 million people, the water rights were not allocated appropriately.
And Orange County Water District was diverting 250,000-acre feet a year off of the Santa Ana River, putting in the groundwater basins. And we didn't have a water right to do that.
And so, the general manager realized that, and he sent me on that. And I worked with our water rights attorneys, went through probably 10 years of administrative and hearings at the State Water Resource Control Board to finally secure water rights and split the water rights throughout the watershed and secured 500,000-acre feet of annual water rights for Orange County Water District.
So, I started when I was a beginning engineer and 16 years later, I finally ended it and put a check in the box and said, “Boy, I'm glad that's over.”
And now, looking back at it, I was like, you don't get a chance to divide water rights on a major river amongst 5 million people and all the different water agencies in the watershed. So, that was a big deal.
And another big decision was going after storage programs because in the groundwater recharge business, you can only recharge significant amounts of water if you can slow it down and capture winter storms.
So, there's a couple of Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs on the Santa Ana River, and they didn't allow for any retention of water. It was all flood control.
And so, again, it probably took us seven or eight years to secure water conservation storage behind reservoirs that were built only for flood control.
And anyone who's dealt with the federal government … and oh, by the way, there were two endangered species behind the dam where we want to flood and store water.
So, getting through all of the CQA, NEPA, environmental regulations, mitigation and getting the federal government, it literally took an act of Congress to do that. But for me, that was an enormous success.
Mahesh Lunani (06:11):
This is excellent. And getting into the water sector, securing water rights, and defining water storage, I mean, those are really powerful macro decisions that has long lasting impacts. And that's fascinating.
By the way, as a young engineer, if I had a mentor like that and I have a big problem to solve, that's a dream job right off the bat.
Craig Miller (06:34):
It was, and that's why I stayed in the industry. When I first started in water, I was doing little projects, connections, pumps, reservoirs. And my general manager, Bill Mills, he kind of took me under his wing and he gave me big programs to work on at a fairly early stage in my career.
And that was the motivator that hooked me in water. And I quickly realized that interconnection between water and the community, and the state, and the national economy.
You can go and make money doing a lot of things in life but going home at the end of the day, and really thinking I really did something to help my community, to help the state to secure water rights.
And today, I still talk to my staff all the time about why am I doing the things we're doing? Why are we launching into our strategic initiatives? It's for our grandchildren. It's not for us, it's not for our current board, it's for our grandchildren.
So, I've tried to walk that talk my whole career, and one thing I'd like to kind of get into it with you is some of the struggles that California's having statewide on water issues. I kicked off an initiative two years ago called Solve the Water Crisis.
We were coming out of a three-year drought and the state had basically run out of water in the state water system. We were down to a 0% allocation. We had a good storm in December, and the state raised it to a 5% allocation, but we'd never been at a 5% allocation, especially for two full years.
And all we heard coming out of the state was, “Hey, you guys ought to conserve. We'll all be fine.”
And the water managers like me, all the GMs, we'd sit down over coffee at lunch, and we'd say, “If it doesn't rain this winter, what are you going to do? What's your agency going to do next year? Because you're already in drastic outdoor cutbacks. Where are we going?”
And all of us, as general managers, very sophisticated organizations, we're basically saying, “I'm not sure how we're going to get through it.” It was like a club in the back of your head where our entire career, all we talk about is how resilient we are and how reliable we are.
And now, we're having these conversations amongst the leaders of these organizations. And it's like, “I'm not sure how we're going to get through this.”
So, we launched this initiative and we said, “We have to change the conversation.” Who's we? It started as Western. I quickly grew it to all my friends in Southern California managing water agencies. We expanded it to the AG industry.
We're not supposed to be friends with AG. Urban and AG, we’re supposed to fight. We found amazing friends in AG all saying the same thing.
And then I'm sure you're aware, in California, we're also, supposed to fight with Northern California. Southern California should fight with Northern California. That's how we were brought up. We're going to fight over moving water across this state.
And as I talked with my friends in Northern California, they were saying the same thing too. And we all have agreed that we need to continue to develop water supply in this state. We cannot be responsible for drastic cutbacks after three dry years in the state of California.
We all know climate impacts are going to be more severe. We're going to have longer drier periods; we're going to have wetter periods. We have to change what we're doing in the water industry to accommodate how the climate's changing.
If we're going to get wet years like we've had the last two and we can't capture that water, we're not doing our job in the water industry. And if we can't survive a 10-year drought, we're not doing our job in the water industry.
And so, talking about big decisions, this is the biggest. We're going to take on moving the water industry into generational investments again, like we used to make when we built the Colorado River Aqueduct and we built the state water project system.
We've gotten away from that for four decades. And we've just kind of coasted along, surviving on our predecessors and their vision. And we need to be visionaries now.
And as good as we are at recycling and reusing and taking care of our own resources locally, our economy of the state and a lot of the economy of this nation was built on our ability to capture water, move it across the state, and feed tech industries in Northern California, tech entertainment in Southern California. And oh, by the way, huge agricultural industry that feeds this entire country.
I sit back and I think about the reservoirs and the recycled water projects I've built. Now, we're into something that is just so big and so hard to move people to understand.
Mahesh Lunani (11:26):
First of all, it's fascinating that you've not just put the Western hat on, you've actually taken a state hat on.
Second is you're talking not about running a system efficiently, but about securing the supply lines for the next generation. And that's a macro issue. Nobody's funding you at a community tax level to take care of that issue but you have to do it.
Craig Miller (11:52):
No, in fact, affordability is a huge issue. And we can get to that later, affordability water. But literally, I went around, and I raised funds from other water agencies to do this.
So, we didn't take private funding or lobbyists or anything else. It was water agencies putting money behind this campaign to change the message and to say, “We have to invest.”
And I'm really proud of the fact that now, what you hear coming out of the governor's office and out of legislators is, “No, we have to invest in all forms of water supply.”
Conservation's really important. We do great conservation at Western. Southern California is the leader in water conservation, I think, in the world. But we can't turn our back on mother nature. And if mother nature's going to deliver our water in faster spurts, we have to figure that out.
So, these water managers have the same philosophy, and we're investing our agency money to try and stimulate this investment by the state and by local entities together.
We know it's a huge investment, but we have to start giving our legislators kind of confidence and courage that the public is going to be behind this investment.
And that is a really big lift because as you know, the public doesn't always pay attention to water agencies and what our needs are. They turn the faucet on, water comes out, they're happy as could be.
Mahesh Lunani (13:21):
Yeah. Unless there's a crisis.
Craig Miller (13:22):
Yeah. Unless there's an emergency. And then they get frustrated with us when we raise rates. And then we make a lot of comments about, this is a valuable investment for you as a water customer. You have to have water. And it's a very fair investment.
Now, we're trying to say that investment you've been making isn't big enough. We need a bigger investment. And those investors don't see the need. It's not visible to them. It's visible to us as water managers.
But people ask me, “Well, why'd you start this, Craig? Why Western?” We're very secure. We've got great resources at Western. In the drought, we did great.
We have Diamond Valley Reservoir that was built by Metropolitan. We're a MET member agency, Metropolitan built that, filled it. It worked perfectly during the drought. So, we were the beneficiaries of that.
Why are we speaking out? Well, why because I feel an obligation to the industry. I feel an obligation to the state. I love the state. I've lived here my whole life. It's the fifth largest economy in the world. How's the fifth largest economy of the world going to stay that way without water?
And oh, by the way, Riverside County (we're in Riverside County, Western) is the fastest growing county in California, and one of the fastest growing in the country.
If I've already maxed out local water supply, my future is really dependent upon bringing in external supplies, continuing to bring in external supplies. We cannot just all of a sudden turn that faucet off and say, “Good luck.”
Because my next best option literally is going to ocean desal. And that's going to be six times as much money. And oh, by the way, we're 40 miles from the ocean.
So, we obviously have a selfish motive, but a bigger driver for me is I want to see the industry being prepared for the long, long, long term.
Mahesh Lunani (15:24):
No, it's leadership. It's really interesting because I recently published The Future of Water, the Five Mega Trends.
And one of the first mega trends, having come from other industries in the past, (although in this industry, I've been there eight years now) there needs to be compelling water story, almost like a VC pitch to communities that they get it.
As you said, it's buried infrastructure and they only worry about it when there's actually an emergency. What you're doing reminds a lot like the “Got Milk?” campaign that fascinated everybody. And that was actually one of the most successful campaigns that was done several decades ago.
And this is what I wrote in this article, that what you're doing in Southern California, perhaps in all of California, is the beginnings of exactly a “Got Milk?” like campaign to secure the water supply in the state of California. So, I commend you for that, taking that initiative.
But as we evolve into this discussion, I want to talk about Western. Where you serve a million residents, you got a whole lot of complex infrastructure, desalters, treatment plants, storage basins, ground water systems. Can you give a bird's eye view of the entire infrastructure you manage?
Craig Miller (16:48):
We got hundreds of miles of pipeline, obviously, and local reservoirs, tanks, storage tanks all over the place. We were actually formed to import water. We're a MET member agency formed to import water.
So, our initial, back in the ‘50s, it was just if people in the area needed additional water, they could call us. We'd call MET, send some water.
But we grew and we quickly build a major pipeline that went from that imported water treatment plant down through to the south through our system so that we could deliver that water to the communities of Corona, Temescal Canyon, Lake Elsinore.
And we saw this need to give more people access to a varied supply. They were all dependent a hundred percent on groundwater. So, in order to meet their growth needs, they needed this imported water. So, we started growing our infrastructure to meet those needs.
We operate two wastewater treatment plants, two brackish desalters. I serve as a water master in four different legal entities, groundwater basins, and the Santa Ana River.
We've expanded our local water supply development, which is outside of our original mission. But we quickly recognized that being too committed to one water supply is dangerous, is risky.
And for our area, which is interesting, we get our imported water from Metropolitan Water District. They're a fabulous agency, fabulously reliable, but they have two supplies. The Colorado River and Northern California coming out of Lake Oroville through the state project.
Well, my service area gets water almost a hundred percent from Lake Oroville. So, you think about that long path to get water to my customer. It's got to be captured in Lake Oroville. It's got to get through the fisheries problems and the delta, the earthquake problems and the delta.
It's got to get through the Central Valley. It's got to get over the mountains. And there's all sorts of things that could go wrong along that path, whether they're mother nature or manmade problems. We figured out we have to really diversify our portfolio even more.
So, we don't sit over a lot of groundwater. So, we develop these brackish desalters. And this is where the industry really has matured and it's going to continue to mature. We built those in groundwater basins to really help others.
But there had to be a business decision to drive that so we got water supply out of it. But pumping out that brackish groundwater system and trying to clean up, that helped all the other pumpers and all the other cities that were pumping from those basins.
So, our investment to get supply reliability for customers in a different area are helping others. And so, that collaborative environment where we partner on these big projects has really been successful in our region.
And people aren't drinking local water supply from under their own feet. It's almost like a second imported supply because we have to move it all over the place.
We reach outside of Riverside County into San Bernardino. We've bought water rights in San Bernardino; we've leased water rights in San Bernardino. We have deals with other agencies to acquire their surplus groundwater rights. And we move that water around.
So, pretty sophisticated infrastructure, more sophisticated agreements, deals, and relationships.
Mahesh Lunani (20:14):
Yeah. It isn't just a treatment plant and pipes, but it is a lot of different connections from different sources to different supplies. So, it's quite fascinating in that sense. Yeah.
Craig Miller (20:26):
And really some innovative thinking and some private sector mentality. So, that risk of imported water supply, we have about a 100,000 people who were a hundred percent dependent upon that when I got to Western.
We sat back and we're like, “That's unacceptable. We can't have that.” We have to have a secondary supply of water for those 100,000 people.
And we embarked on this program. We'd already built these brackish desalters, they're like 10 to 20 miles, two different desalters away from these customers and a thousand feet lower in elevation, and not interconnected.
So, on the financial backs of the 100,000 customers, we embarked on a $40 million project to tie the two desalters together with a pipeline, create a large pump station and a reservoir and a five mile pipeline up a thousand feet to intertie those two systems, which was expensive.
But you had to have that reliability. And so, our customers invested in that, or well, we invested it in that reliability for our customers.
But then we started thinking, so we built all this, are we only going to operate it in an emergency? We got $40 million of infrastructure sitting around waiting for a pipeline to fail, or an earthquake. That doesn't make sense.
What can we do? How can we market this water and pay back those customers, but maintain the emergency service that they need? And so, we started this thing, what we call the wholesale enterprise system.
And so, as we started crunching the numbers and figuring out the economics, we actually were able to produce this water for other entities down in the valley that were cheaper than their imported water alternatives that they were buying.
And so, we just created a new market and we said, “You don't have to buy imported water. We'll sell you this water for less than imported water. However, in an emergency, those 100,000 customers have first call on the water and you then can go back to your groundwater supplies or other imported water supplies.”
So, we created this very marketable private sector enterprise to really solve two problems. We got a lot of our customers cheaper water than they're buying from Metropolitan Water District. And we got a secondary supply to lower the risk of our residents.
And it actually paid off, because I always think it's an earthquake or some terrorist activity was going to take out the supply.
It actually was taken out- and it was a contractor doing a horizontal drilling for fiber optic cable. And he went through the 12-foot diameter pipeline that delivers water from Northern California. We were without that water for three weeks.
So, thank goodness we had all these relationships in place. Our customers really never knew anything had happened.
Mahesh Lunani (23:20):
Right. I think two things are required for what you just said. One is you need systems thinking and second is you need to operate like a business.
Otherwise, if you don't have both those elements, you would be too stuck in your own little box, and you'd be too stuck in managing rates and satisfying your communities. But you actually opened up that box to do that.
That’s leadership, especially in Southern California where you have to look at a much bigger ecosystem, so to speak.
I want to talk about your budgeting. Generally, what's your O&M and capital budget and where are you investing in the next five years?
Craig Miller (24:02):
Let's see, capital budget, I think our next two years, we're going to spend about $40 million a year on our capital budget. Our O&M budget's about 170 million a year.
That 40 million I was talking about for that pipeline and pump station was a big investment. And that's on top of all the asset management investment that we have to do. So, the 40 million that's left in the next couple years is really focused on asset replacement.
We got to learn to operate our systems and I think we're in a really nice spot that we've done that major investment locally. Now, it's taking care of our assets and making sure we have reliability.
I think a lot of our work is kind of on the other side of the spectrum. We're going to really be challenged with affordability and convincing customers of the value of water and investment in water I think is really an important element that we're going to focus on in the next five years.
And that's not a budgetary thing, but without the public, we're run by a publicly elected board. If the public doesn't find value, our board is going to suffer. And our board has to have the confidence to approve budgets and approve rates.
And we're going to have significant rate increases. No doubt. Metropolitan Water District has an 11% rate increase next year and a 10% rate increase the following year. We have to figure out how to blend that in with all the expenses that we have. So, that's a huge issue for us.
And then I think the other one that we're kind of just on guard about is the investment that's going to be required for regulatory changes. As we see water quality regulations coming our way on PFAS and other things, we know that those regulatory limits are just going to keep getting driven lower and lower and lower.
And that's going to cause us to have to treat more and more water. We're trying to figure out what that investment is likely going to be in the next decade. And that's really hard to do because we don't know where the line's going to be drawn by EPA and the state of California.
So, we're preparing for that. But I think that could be a really significant investment and that could change our CIP budget significantly.
We don't see it in two years, but probably within five we're going to have to really spend a lot more money on water quality enhancement.
Mahesh Lunani (26:32):
You said you’re challenged about affordability. One way to offset affordability of course is drive more efficiency internally as well. What's your big focus on O&M efficiency?
Craig Miller (26:43):
We've got a lot of different irons in the fire on efficiency. And this is where hiring great staff is just so valuable for an organization. So, I'm a genius leader. I help hire good people and then I said, “You guys fix this.” And then I stay out of the way. Just get out of the way.
And so, our operations team, it's a major initiative for them. And they said we need to figure out how to optimize our energy uses first. So, they partnered with UC Riverside, and with several consultants.
And we've torn apart our whole operating strategy on when are pumps flipped on, what is the optimum way to move water? Don't ever move it in the peak periods. And we literally saved $500,000 in one year just by being smarter about when we turned on pumps to fill reservoirs.
We've invested in battery storage. We've got two significant solar arrays that are old. We're reevaluating those like, well, they're kind of reaching their useful life. Should we expand? Should we go a different direction? What are we going to do? So, energy is a huge one.
Our operations team at our wastewater treatment plant, they said, “I'm not sure we're using natural gas as efficiently as possible. We capture digester gas, but we're still using a lot of natural gas. Why?”
So, the smart operators, these are the guys out there twisting dials and measuring water quality, making sure the plant runs. They literally said, “Let's change how we utilize our boilers and the gas feeds.” And literally they came to me and said, “We saved $300,000 last year.”
It was kind of fun- I was back out at one of our treatment plants yesterday having breakfast with the operators just touching base and thanking him for all they do.
And the manager said, “Hey, tell Craig a little bit about our chemical savings.” And so, they went through some of the things that they've changed a little bit. And I said, “Well, how much are you saving?” And they said, “About a $1,000 a day.” And I said, “That's $365,000 a year. And you guys have never even said anything about it.”
So, it's a huge effort by everybody and it's one of the things that's special about Western and our staff is that's just their job. We have this innovative staff that sits down and says, “Well, we've been doing it like this. It doesn't seem to be the best way. Let's change.” And they're not afraid to change.
I hope that I model that for the staff that yeah, you're going to make mistakes, that not everything's going to go well. And it better not go well because you're not being creative enough and you're not pushing the envelope hard enough.
We don't want to make big mistakes. But we have to take risk to be more efficient. And to take on Tesla batteries, is that going to work for us? Well, let's build one and see.
Mahesh Lunani (29:48):
This is great. I mean, you just outlined a million dollars per year savings that could be about five employees you can hire without adding any additional budget.
Craig Miller (29:56):
Or 2.5% decrease in our next rate increase.
Mahesh Lunani (29:59):
There you go. I mean, that's even fantastic for the residents, right?
Craig Miller (30:03):
Yeah.
Mahesh Lunani (30:03):
So, I want to talk about circular economy. It's a very favorite topic of mine because we talked a lot about what you're doing with Solve the Water Crisis and how you're bringing the whole team together. So, I want to kind of build on that to the circular economy.
Every leader like you has to make decisions through the lens of reuse, recycle, recovery. In many respects what you did back in storage decisions, you talked about one of the important decisions you did. How is Western implementing circular economy strategies?
And you talked about the battery, and the solar, and recovery, and the natural gas and so on. But are there other stuff that would come under this umbrella of circular economy?
Craig Miller (30:45):
Well, I started my career at Orange County Water District at the bottom of the watershed. And I've kind of been moving my way up the watershed. And Western is higher in the watershed. We're not at the top of the watershed.
But at the bottom of the watershed, we're very proud of the fact that water doesn't get wasted to the ocean. So, Orange County Water District tries to capture every drop of water that's coming down the Santa Ana River.
There's like 14 wastewater discharges upstream. So, that's a big issue. And we're two of those discharges. Now, one up at Western.
So, when you look at that, you see that's pretty miraculous. The watershed is almost a hundred percent recycled. And so, when you talk about circular economy, how many circles do you want? And we want more.
So, we have kind of this mission of can we get to using every drop of water three times? I want to make sure that when we are discharging water back to the river, we've already used it once or twice.
So, we're fully recycled and we're embarking on another $4 million project to divert recycled water back into the system again in the Chino Basin. So, it could be used one more time before it finally gets to the river and goes down river to Orange County Water District capturing it.
So, I like to say we're kind of turbocharging recycling.
Mahesh Lunani (32:15):
You are living it, yeah.
Craig Miller (32:16):
I speak across the state.I'm very fortunate to be on panels and someone will say, “Well, we really need to focus on recycling and conservation. That's the state's future. The environmental community really doesn't want to build new infrastructure.”
And I was like, if we're using it three times, there's really not a lot more that we can do. Conservation, we have lowered our per capita water use in half since 2011. In half. So, we're a hundred percent on board with recycling.
And we take it a little further, it's like I talked a little bit about those brackish desalters. I think that's really important. We're taking water that wouldn't be produced for beneficial uses, we're producing it, treating it, making it drinking water. That process is the circle of life you're talking about.
It is drawing out poor quality water from the basin so good quality water can go in the other end. So, I'm really proud of that, as you say, circular economy in two different groundwater basins. And that's just Western. There's other brackish desalters in the watershed that are doing the same thing.
But I also, have to emphasize traditional technology. We always think about reuse, recycling, and desalters and gee-whiz-bang technology, but we have to focus on strategies that have proven to work over decades, centuries.
We can capture water and move water around with a much lower cost than recycling and conservation. So, it all has to come together.
But we have to be good economists. We cannot shed low-cost water supply because politically it's more challenging to get it built. And we have to go and argue with environmental groups, special interest groups to do that. We have to have that discussion.
And I talked about Solve the Water Crisis that's evolved into a bill SB 366 to try and set a target for water for the state and evolved into a movement called California Water for All.
In that movement, we want the environmental special interest community to be at the table with us. Tell us the smartest way to provide water for the environment. Because water managers like me are environmentalists. I've recovered two species in the Santa Ana watershed on the backs of water. We have the finances to recover species.
Mahesh Lunani (34:49):
It’s a second nature for folks like yourself, yeah.
Craig Miller (34:52):
Yeah. That is circular economy, right?
Mahesh Lunani (34:53):
Yeah.
Craig Miller (34:54):
Because the special interest groups do not have money to fix fisheries in the delta. It's going to have to come from somewhere else.
And the water agencies and the state can provide that money and we can actually come up with real solutions. And instead of doing the real solutions, we've been stuck in these fights for four decades.
And so, I want to make sure I emphasize that that old technology of reservoirs that capture water, (and they can be off stream reservoirs) they don't have to block fisheries, it works, and it's got great economic benefit and it needs to blend very succinctly with all of our other technologies that we're doing.
Mahesh Lunani (35:37):
It's very fascinating what you're talking about because from all these episodes, I don't think that “water economist” is a word that came up. And that changes quite a bit where you tag a dollar value for every supply source you have and think about traditional or new methods of securing supply.
And even though some of them might be tough decisions to make, and in your case, you talked about using reservoirs and harvesting maybe a cheaper source, and recycling, recycling, recycling. That's a really fascinating way to look at this whole problem.
Craig Miller (36:21):
You can grow this discussion and conversation as big as you want. But as I talk with my friends in the Central Valley that manage irrigation districts and they constantly are bombarded with special interest groups that want to take water from AG and commit it to the environment.
Well, this is where economists need to come to the table. So, you're going to fallow AG land to the benefit of an undefined source. Just water for the environment, for what purpose? Let's plan the right purpose.
But what's the economic cost of driving agriculture out of California? Is it going to go to another country? Is the United States going to become dependent on a food source from another country that we don't have price control and supply control over?
I mean, I love the fact that we have an extremely secure food supply in the state of California and the United States. And I'm not an AG person, I'm a water person.
But I just feel that it's the best interest of our economy and our state, that we figure out a better solution. And our bill in California Water for All, our movement, one of the primary tenants is we've been stuck arguing about water in an environment of scarcity.
And in an environment of scarcity of water, we fight, and we battle, and we steal water from one to give it to another. And we entrench ourselves. And our bill is all about we need to plan water in abundance. We need to have more water.
I mean, you think about that three-year drought. We had AG land that was fallowed. We had 6 million people in Southern California that were on severe outdoor watering restrictions. We have groundwater basins through the Central Valley that are in extreme overdraft. Oh, by the way, we have groundwater basins in Southern California that are in very overdrafted conditions.
And so, we're worried about the loss of water because of climate change and loss of snowpack. Well, we're starting way behind, we've been behind. Where's the water to refill all the aquifers across the state so that we have that supply to get us through 10-year droughts?
That's what we're trying to highlight. We are very far behind in our water supply. We need this abundant supply.
That abundant supply will get us out of this scarcity war and get us into thinking more creatively about how we can partner with programs with AG. Why can't we flood AG land in the winter in years like this and years like last and allow them to repolish all their groundwater basins.
Right now, we're really struggling to move water through the delta to get it to Southern California. It's not because there's not enough water. Over a million-acre feet of water have been released to the ocean that could have been moved through the delta this year.
And it's not being moved because of regulatory restrictions. It makes no sense. There are easy engineering solutions that are affordable. Why would we waste a million-acre feet of water that mother nature handed us? We got to get our act together.
Mahesh Lunani (39:47):
Yeah, no, I remember that famous video. Was it Marty Adams or I don't remember who did the video when the gush of water from the massive rain was flooding or was going right into the ocean.
And the water managers, perhaps it was Marty, perhaps who might have seen it, say, “Can I hold this back and put it back into my system instead of letting it go into the ocean?” And that's what you're talking about. Yeah.
Craig Miller (40:13):
And I think it's a public confidence issue because the public sees video of that. They see the news, they watch … remember we all watched the spillway at Lake Oroville crumble back in 2017.
And the public's like, “Hey, water guys, you were talking about these terrible droughts and we need to conserve water. And then we watch on the news, all this water, what are you doing with it?”
That's happened again last year and this year. And we should be held accountable. We need to figure out how to fix that. And it should not be happy.
Now, you can't capture every storm. It doesn't make sense to build enough infrastructure to capture every drop, but we can certainly help flooding conditions and do something beneficial with that water.
Mahesh Lunani (40:56):
Yeah. Or you can have a limit saying 2-million-acre feet we can capture and store it, whatever the number is. Right?
Craig Miller (41:01):
That's what our bill is doing. SB 366 is putting in statute that the state needs to come up with a water plan and set a 10-million-acre foot target of new water supply development by the year 2040.
It's a planning bill. Plan to build 10-million-acre feet of new water supply in this state. Let's figure it out. Let's get started. It's baby steps. Let's start with the planning process and then we'll figure out which projects and then we'll figure out who's paying for it. But we got to have a plan.
Mahesh Lunani (41:33):
Right. It's the same iconic move was back then when the Colorado River Project started. I mean that was the major lifeblood for the growth of Southern California. And perhaps this bill would be major lifeblood for securing the supply with alternative sources. So, it is as iconic as that. Yeah.
Craig Miller (41:57):
We're very good planners locally. I have a 20-year strategic plan, I have a 10-year capital improvement plan. We have, we call it our aspiration plan here at Western where we just sat back and we visioned where we want the agency to be in 20 years.
Do we want to be independent from external supplies? Do we want to collaborate with external supplies? What do we want to do as far as growth? What do we want to do as far as water recycling? We do that locally.
I don't understand why the state isn't doing the same thing. It's like a strategy of hope on the Colorado and hope at the state level. And what is too sophisticated for that? We can't have hope as a strategy. Everyone will tell you hope is not a strategy. Right?
Mahesh Lunani (42:42):
Yeah. That's a book right there. It's systems thinking. It really is systems thinking. So, this conversation is so exciting, we can keep going on.
Because we are reaching the time limit here, I want to delve right into the last question that I had for you. What's your advice to an aspiring water leader that has a lot more to look forward to in the future in this space?
Craig Miller (43:05):
Oh boy. If I look back at my career, I think the first advice I would give is say yes. That same general manager who was mentoring me, he called me into his office again and he said, “I'm going to move you out to run our operations out in the field.”
And I was like, “I'm an engineer. I don't run bulldozers, and I don't know what to do with that. I don't know those people. No, thank you. I don't want to do that.” And he said, “Well, I want you to think about it over the weekend.”
And I thought about it over the weekend, and I thought, “Well, he's a really smart guy. He must have a plan.” And so, I came back Monday morning, he called me into his office, and I talked to him where I said, “Okay, I'm open to it.”
And I just was not smart enough to envision what he was thinking. And he said to me, “Well, I'm glad you're going to take that because I want to work on your leadership. That group out there doesn't think they're part of Orange County Water District and I want you to change that.”
And it turned out to be maybe the most influential change I had in my career because it moved me from managing projects and sitting in a cubicle and looking at design sheets into developing people and thinking bigger picture, thinking strategic, thinking long term.
And I went from managing nobody to managing 45 people in one day. And I loved it. And it was because he talked me into yes. So, smarter young leaders should just say yes. Don't force someone to talk you into it.
I would also say change is awesome. People are scared of change. We have a motto here that change is awesome. Be ready to change. I never thought I was going to be taking on a statewide initiative three years ago, no idea.
And so, that change is risky, and you have to take risk in your career. And so, be open to the change. Say yes to it and embrace it.
And then the other thing that I did not realize when I was in school is you have to be a communicator. You have to learn how to tell a story. You have to learn how to create an argument. You have to be influential in your argument. You have to listen to other people's arguments.
Obviously, you have to make good strategic decisions, but if you can't articulate a problem, articulate a solution, you'll never move things. And a leader has to move things. You have to be able to convince other people to follow you and to take on initiative.
So, communication is just super, super important. And that's at all levels. You just come in from the field and talk to your manager about what happened out in the field. You are communicating and leading at that point. Or you're talking to your board of directors about your strategic plan. It's all communication and leadership.
And then the last thing I would say is get things done. You have to get things done. You have to check boxes, you have to come up with a plan. You have to be able to follow through on a plan. And then you have to tell people that you successfully completed a plan.
And that moves you. People like people that can get things done.
Mahesh Lunani (46:19):
It is absolutely fascinating how you answered this question because about four weeks ago, I shared with our team the traits of a high-performance individual.
And many things you talked about, saying yes, articulating a problem, being a good communicator, getting things done, which was number one on that list. Well, that I read, but this, I'm listening to what you said.
It was clear to me as I was listening that every one of those you live through it. It came naturally as you were describing it. So, I hope everyone listens to what you just said.
Craig Miller (46:58):
It's taken me 30 years to get to this point. If I was a better listener and more open, I probably could have got to this point 20 years ago. But a lot of us have to kind of get knocked around a little bit before we start learning things.
And I think the other thing that I would be remiss if I didn't share is you have to lead people and you have to develop people, and you have to find great leaders to surround yourself with.
I'm the leader of the organization. My executive management team, which is 14 people, are just as good leaders as I am. And that is really hard. I spend a huge amount of time trying to develop those leaders.
We have a lot of training. We have a very sports-minded leadership philosophy about ownership and responsibility. And it's nice to talk about all these programs, but it wouldn't happen without the best team in the business.
Mahesh Lunani (47:56):
Fascinating. So, first of all, I want to thank you for being part of this conversation. As a young engineer taking on massive challenges, water rights, talking about doing systems thinking, operating like a business, building an amazing team, living through and sharing your experiences, and driving operational efficiency through your team.
I mean, these are some incredible stories I've heard, Craig, and I hope the audience takes so much out of this and maybe listen two, three times to really sink in. So, I want to thank you for taking the time.
Craig Miller (48:32):
I really appreciate what you're doing. This is invaluable to our industry. And if I was a baby engineer, again, these podcasts and the tools that people like you are putting in front of young businesspeople is just really great. And it's just so helpful. So, I really appreciate what you do.
Mahesh Lunani (48:53):
Real pleasure. Thank you, Craig.
[Music Playing]
Voiceover (48:55):
Join host and Aquasight founder and CEO Mahesh Lunani for another episode of 21st Century Water. Subscribe for free in Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or Stitcher. Produced by JAG in Detroit Podcasts.