23 Jun OWASA Water Treatment Plant Maintenance Team: Keeping Equipment Running and Water Flowing
MG Murray
Moving water from a reservoir, through a water treatment plant, and delivering it to customers takes a lot of moving parts along the way. To make sure those parts are all working as efficiently as they can, OWASA’s Maintenance Team is constantly monitoring equipment to make any tweaks or repairs needed to keep providing essential services to the Carrboro, Chapel Hill, southern Orange County community. All of this plays into maintaining water quality for OWASA customers.
James Dodson is OWASA’s Maintenance Supervisor and leads a Team of three Maintenance Mechanics who are primarily focused on preventative and corrective maintenance. Dodson has worked in almost every aspect of OWASA’s operations since 2006 and credits previous Team members who shared their knowledge in his early days with helping him throughout his career at OWASA. The Team Dodson leads now includes Cole Hudson, MG Murray, and Marie Waters. This group works at the Jones Ferry Road Water Treatment Plant, in addition to assisting other Team members across OWASA as needed.
Some of these maintenance projects are born from a culture of continuous improvement. Dodson said it’s important that the maintenance
Marie Waters
Team understands OWASA’s operation so that they can see an issue, identify a solution, and work toward a resolution as quickly and safely as possible. And this group goes through regular training sessions to keep safety as a top priority as they may have to work on electrical equipment, a chemical leak, or generally handling dangerous materials.
Anywhere the Team can have an impact by improving a process or equipment reliability, “that’s where we get to get creative,” Dodson said.
He added that anyone with a mechanical background or a mind that wants to know how something works and why it works that way would be a good fit for this sort of field. Doing this work at a place like OWASA also helps give back to the community every day.