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Page 2
Lead Lessons Learned
Page 3
Dam Ride Changes
Page 4
Tacoma Rail’s New Book
Lessons learned from lead response It may be old news by now, but it bears repeating: Tacoma’s water is safe to drink. In an effort to find and remove any remaining short sections of old lead pipe in the utility’s system in April, Tacoma Water found high levels of lead in the pipes outside four homes. In response, the utility did extensive testing both inside and outside an additional dozen homes to determine the source of the lead and what could be done to eliminate it. The samples collected within the homes were well below the EPA’s action level for lead. When testing water from the pipes outside the home, the utility predicted the short pieces of lead pipe — called goosenecks — were the lead source, and the homes with lead goosenecks indeed had the highest lead results. More surprising, though, was that when the valve at the meter was opened and the plumbing was disrupted, lead particulates from the valve were released into the water, regardless of whether there was a lead gooseneck.
Tacoma Water confirmed that flushing the water after opening and closing the valve clears the high levels of lead. The utility has long had a practice of flushing service lines after they’re worked on, but will also now be sure to flush after turning water off and on.
What’s next?
It’s still important that Tacoma Water remove the remaining lead goosenecks from its system, and that will be done as expediently and efficiently as possible over the course of about five years. While it could be done faster, it makes more sense to take the time to coordinate our work with that of other utilities in order to disrupt people as little as possible. In the meantime, Tacoma Water is offering free water testing kits to the people whose homes could still have a lead gooseneck. The kits will be available to all Tacoma Water customers this fall.
Water utility workers Tamar Jackson and Kimberly Edwards remove a lead gooseneck and replace a customer’s service.
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A team approach
In looking back at the utility’s response to the initial lead findings, Tacoma Water Deputy Superintendent Chris McMeen said he saw a lot that impressed him, especially the people who worked directly with customers. “The professionalism of their response was extraordinary — particularly the 20 service workers who made personal contact with our customers by knocking on their doors one Saturday,” Chris said. “That was a high point for me. We felt that the water was safe, but we realized customers were worried, so those direct conversations were critical.” The organization’s media strategy — focusing on local print media at the start to set the tone for the broadcast media that was sure to come — was also important to managing the utility’s response. “The approach of working closely, collaboratively and honestly with The News Tribune was extraordinarily beneficial,” Chris said. “Doing it that way enabled us to tell a complicated story as clearly as we could.” Chris said he was also pleased with the work of the Water division team members, who — on the fly — came up with very good technical approaches to solve problems and engaged the right experts. “We adjusted to surprising conditions in the field very well, showing technical savvy and ingenuity.” In thinking about how he would advise a utility that found itself in a similar situation, Chris said it’s crucial to consider the large impact news like this will have on partner agencies. All told, Chris said he’s proud of the work the organization did to seek out and respond to lead in the water. “We are a forward looking utility that wants to know we’re doing the right thing,” he said.
Community Connection
WELCOME HOME
Making an impact through Rebuilding In just one spring day, 75 TPU employees cleaned, renovated and revitalized a Tacoma senior’s home in partnership with Rebuilding Together South Sound. The home improvements did more than give the homeowner, Rea, a more healthy and peaceful place to live. “You didn’t just fix up a house, you fixed me,” Rea said. “Now I can invite people over, sit and relax and read a book.” From early morning until the late hours of the night, volunteers scrubbed every surface, painted walls and trim, fixed the bathroom, installed new flooring, constructed a built-in table, cleared landscaping, built railings around the deck and more. Prior to the event, Rea heated her house with just one space heater. TPU volunteers connected Rea with the utility’s conservation
programs to get her a ductless heat pump, which helps consistently and cost-effectively heat and cool the house. Employees gave from their own pockets, too. They gave more than $6,800 in donated items and materials, and more than 680 hours of work — an effort worth $26,500. “The TPU family’s generosity is unreal,” said Community Connection program manager Erika Tucci. “Even after seven years of doing this event, I can’t believe the heart, dedication and hard work that abounds on Rebuild day.” Interested in doing similar work? Join the Community Connection Habitat Build on Saturday, July 30. Volunteers help a low-income family build their home. No construction experience required! To sign up, call Erika at 502-8225.
CALLING ALL BIKERS!
Changes to Dam Ride fundraiser Hit the highway with Community Connection for the annual Dam Ride on Saturday, Aug. 20. After 16 years, the event is changing a bit based on employee feedback. Watch Newsline for the specifics. What hasn’t changed about the event is the people it impacts most — senior customers in need. The money raised goes to TPU’s Senior Assistance Fund to provide one-time, $100 utility bill grants. The fund is supported entirely by contributions from employees, friends and retirees. Your registration fee for the Dam Ride gets you morning refreshments, lunch and a good time with your coworkers. To sign up, contact Erika Tucci at 502-8225. Registration forms and payments are due by Aug. 12.
Now’s the time to prepare your United Way basket Fall is just around the corner. If your team plans to contribute a basket to the United Way campaign basket raffle, now is the time to start making plans and pulling donations and items together. If your team is short on ideas, a web or Pinterest search for auction basket themes will help. Last year’s raffle baskets raised $14,500 for United Way.
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bits & pieces RAIL TALES
Tacoma Rail’s history documented in new book The history, drama, finance and community impact of Tacoma’s rail industry are documented in a new book: “Tacoma Rail: One Hundred Years and Still on Track.” “The book is meant to recognize the people who built and continue to operate the most efficient short line railroad in North America — Tacoma Rail,” said Superintendent Dale King. The 128-page coffee table book is full of historical and contemporary photography, as well as a detailed account of Tacoma’s railroading history and a look toward its future. The book is the product of interviews and intense archive research.
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“The last time we did a book like this was in 1995,” Dale said. “There have been more changes to Tacoma Rail in those 21 years than in the railroad’s first 80. This book makes our history current and tells of our latest accomplishments — reaching an all-time business high, adding two rail divisions, entering into a 20-year agreement with the Port, tripling our yard capacity and branching out to provide trains for various industries and commodities.” Get on board for this great ride of a read! It’s for sale at King’s Books and Tacoma Trains & Hobbies in Tacoma. Find a list of other locations at TacomaRail.com. The book sells for $39.95.
SOAKING IT UP
Community solar project sold out
TPU awarded United Way’s Campaign of the Year award
Thanks to the almost 1,000 Tacoma Power customers who bought community solar units, the 300-kilowatt project sold out. The first two solar arrays were up and running in February, the second two in March. As soon as the solar units started producing energy, people who bought solar units started earning the state incentive and the value of the energy produced. At the time of publication, the four arrays had produced a combined 127,252 Kilowatt-hours. That’s enough to:
The United Way of Pierce County recently recognized TPU’s United Way campaign team with the Public Sector Campaign of the Year award. This annual recognition is given to the public sector agency with the most impressive campaign coordinators. United Way praised the nine employee volunteers who ran TPU’s campaign for their time and commitment, their creative work to help employees understand the importance of United Way’s efforts, and the number of employees they involved in giving. “At the award presentation, the United Way spokesperson Dianna Kielian shared stories about our team’s energy, creativity and enthusiasm for helping employees understand the needs of our community,” said Community Connection Program Manager Erika Tucci. “She talked fondly of getting to know employees at the leadership lunches and chasing down bucket trucks to hand out donuts on kickoff day. Dianna confirmed that TPU’s sense of community, camaraderie and culture is unique.” Congrats to this team for a job well done:
Offset 11,300 gallons of gasoline
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Charge 5,400 electric cars
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Charge 24 million smartphones
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Avoid 80 tons of CO2 of emissions
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Power a search engine data center for four days
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Power the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center for 3,800 nights
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Want to see how much energy the project is producing in real time? Visit the web pages listed below. If you click around the sites, you can find a lot of good information. n n n n
TacomaPower.com/Solar1 TacomaPower.com/Solar2 TacomaPower.com/Solar3 TacomaPower.com/Solar4
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Sherry Berreth, Customer Services Christine Bowers, T&D Roland Jones, T&D Vall Pearson, UTS Lyndsey Michels, Water
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Jon Fields, T&D McKenzi Kent, T&D Dan Knouff, Rail Jessie Wells, T&D
Bill redesign continued from page 1 support who specialize in this type of work. When it comes to customers’ bills, there’s very little margin for error. We need to get this right.” The project formally kicked off in February. The team includes 16 TPU employees from Customer Services, UTS, Information Technology, and Community & Media Services, as well as contractor employees. Customer research, along with employee and management input led to several goals for the bill redesign project: Provide a bill that accurately and clearly explains what customers are paying for and how much they owe
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Reduce calls and inquiries about basic information on the bill n Replace outdated software with new software with a long shelf life n Create space for marketing messages on the bill n
“I think when this new bill design is launched, we will have achieved all of these goals,” Steve said. “I anticipate the feedback being more positive than anything. Customers have had the same bill for 13 years, and I think they will immediately see this new bill is much easier to understand.”
Communication about the new bill design began in April. Customers will receive a letter in the mail about two weeks prior to receiving their bill with the new design, and for the first two billing cycles, the new bill will include information about how to read and understand it. The first bill will include a link to a survey designed to gather customer thoughts about the bill design and capture ideas for improvements in the future. “We don’t often predict customer excitement about receiving a bill,” Steve said. “In this case, however, I anticipate customers will be thrilled.”
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P2P
New tools coming soon for Purchasing TPU and the City’s Purchasing team are changing the way they do business. The groups are ridding outdated paper-based systems in favor of technology that allows bids, contracts, invoices and purchases to be done online. Called Procure to Pay (P2P), the project is a joint effort with Finance and City IT. There is a trifecta of reasons for the change: vendors expect to be able to find and submit bids electronically; staff members need digital tools to cut down on manual, repetitive work; and departments that work with Purchasing want faster turnaround times and standardized processes. “We’ve yet to catch up to the technology changes and improvements available for our industry,” said Procurement & Payables Division Manager Patsy Best. “It costs us time, money and efficiency.” That’s about to change. Estimates show the new cloud- based software added to SAP could help save the City $17 million over the next five years. Much of the savings would come from better managed bids, contracts and vendors. “The problems we have now start from the very first step in the purchasing and procurement process,” Patsy said. “Vendors don’t know when City contracts are available to bid on unless they check our website for something new. Vendors constantly ask to sign up for email alerts, but we don’t have an automatic notification system.”
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The issues compound from there. Vendors who want to submit a bid have to do so by paper. “We’re often not talking about bringing in a few forms,” Patsy said. “We’ve had some large bids so complicated that vendors had to wheel boxes of papers stacked onto a handcart through our doors. We also heavily use fax. Yes! I said fax.” Once a bid is won, the vendor’s contracts, approvals and invoices are handled the same way - with tons of paper, time-intensive routing for signatures, and staff spending many hours on data entry and document management. The whole process amounts to some large figures: Purchasing handles paperwork for about 700 competitive solicitations a year (about twice as many as other similar-sized agencies). It can take up to 18 days to route the associated contracts through all the different departments that need to review and approve them. Then, to pay the vendors,
Automatic notifications to suppliers for bid opportunities
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Bids submitted, evaluated and awarded online
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Contracts created and managed online
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Electronic approvals and signatures for City employees and vendors
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Invoices submitted online
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Availability on mobile devices
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Another feature will benefit employees who make purchases for the utility. They will be able to go to the online store within the software to browse options, add items to a shopping cart, route the cart for approvals, check out and automatically send the order to the vendor. Shopping for contracted options through the software will help the City leverage its buying power, reduce prices and eliminate multiple paper invoices. The employee shopping component rolls out next spring.
“We’ve yet to catch up to the technology changes and improvements available for our industry. It costs us time, money and efficiency.” Purchasing staff manually processes about 57,000 invoices a year and ends up redoing a third of them because of vendor mistakes. The new technology can fix all of that. By fall, the software will be configured and used to make these improvements:
“Because we are spending public funds, there’s always extra complexity for government procurement,” Patsy said. “But we have this huge opportunity to simplify our system. It’s exciting that we’ll soon be freed up from all of these manual processes and can start thinking about how else to benefit our ratepayers.”
Who’s new around here
Who’s ready to relax The following employees recently retired: William Fay, engineer with Tacoma Power, retired in June after three years of service. Walter Friel, electrical inspector with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 19 years of service.
Erik Andersson Business Development Manager Public Affairs
Maria Andren Customer Services Representative Customer Services
Timothy Bagwell Power Supervisor Tacoma Power
Harold Baldwin, heavy equipment operator with Tacoma Power, retired in July after seven years of service. Heidi D’Andrea, utility services representative with Tacoma Power, retired in May after 38 years of service. Marylynn Eltrich, utility service representative with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 23 years of service. Theresa Hansen, wire electrician with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 31 years of service.
Brian Ballard Lora Cooper Natural Resources Biologist Customer Services Representative Tacoma Water Customer Services
Patrick De Vito Helpdesk Specialist Tacoma Power
Ronald Jacobson, hydro project mechanic with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 30 years of service. Holger Jorgensen, water service worker with Tacoma Water, retired in July after 36 years of service. Mark Klein, telecom technician with Tacoma Power, retired in May after 18 years of service. Dee Langberg, engineering technician with Tacoma Power, retired in June after 32 years of service.
Raymond Estrada Engineering Technician Tacoma Water
Jeremy James Power Dispatcher Tacoma Power
Ahlmahz Negash Power Analyst Tacoma Power
Mark LaRiviere, natural resources biologist with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 24 years of service. JJ LaSanta-Perez, power supervisor with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 33 years of service. John Paris, water plant maintenance worker with Tacoma Water, retired in July with 38 years of service. Christopher Porter, engineering technician with Tacoma Power, retired in May after 20 years of service.
Gregory Rudi Olivia Sund Broadband Services Manager Customer Services Representative Tacoma Power Customer Services
Michelle Whitmarsh Office Administrator Tacoma Power
Sam Rupert, environmental specialist with Tacoma Power, retired in May after 28 years of service. Ken Scudder, assistant manager with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 26 years of service. Sherold Thomas, line equipment operator with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 13 years of service. Steve Tilley, assistant manager with Tacoma Power, retired in July after 28 years of service.
Jack Zieger Engineer Tacoma Power
Gordon Wise, sales and service representative with Click!, retired in July after 14 years of service.
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Tacoma Public Utilities PO Box 11007 • Tacoma WA 98411
PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID TACOMA WA PERMIT NO 2
Power’s tree program raking in accolades For the 12th time, the National Arbor Day Foundation named Tacoma Power a Tree Line USA Utility for its dedication to quality tree care. Why does that matter? When trees are planted in the right place, properly cared for and trimmed regularly, there are fewer power outages due to branches falling on power lines. The utility’s vegetation management program pleased auditors during the 2016 Western Electricity Coordinating Council audit. Auditors noted these things: The evidence documenting Tacoma Power’s program was well organized, very succinct and the best they have reviewed.
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Tacoma Power’s tree trimming program is well put together and established.
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Ubits is a publication for Tacoma Public Utilities employees and is provided as a courtesy to retirees. Jenae Elliott, editor cms@cityoftacoma.org • (253) 502-8754
Tacoma Power has done a great job following industry changes and adopting them early.
“Our vegetation management team has built a strong culture around ‘Customer Value First’ and system reliability,” said Tim Ross, Vegetation Management supervisor. “They have a high level of pride in the work they perform for Tacoma Power, which has helped reduce outages, earn the recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation and receive outstanding ratings for keeping Tacoma Power in compliance with the North American Electric Reliability vegetation compliance standard.”
Branching out
The vegetation management team includes two inspectors and three in-house crews, led by utility arborist Mike Snider. In addition to clearing lines in our service area, Tacoma Power trims trees on a strict they do very specialized work, including four-year and two-year cycle. Every four years, trees are trimmed to a safe distance from power installing osprey platforms and rappelling down dams ( pictured above ) to clear lines. At the two-year point, the circuits are vegetation at the hydroelectric projects. audited to identify faster-growing vegetation, “I can’t say enough about our team and which is then cut back again. That’s about 750 the work they do,” Mike said. “They are circuit miles of trimming each year. highly skilled and very efficient. They do Tacoma Power also inspects all its 230-kilovolt power lines quarterly to comply excellent work day and night. They serve our customers very well.” with federal standards. n