During the day staff is further depleted when members go off site to operate the Glen Annie Turn Off, collect water samples for bacterial analysis, check chlorine residuals, look for leaks, make trips to troubleshoot, or when two are needed to change chlorine cylinders at Glen Canyon and Ellwood. The situation is exacerbated during personal emergencies, illness, or vacation. In order to assure coverage, staff members work overtime weekly and are on call duty. The acute shortage of operating staff leads to many problems, such as delayed maintenance, lack of timely response in cases of emergency and stress on personnel. This may jeopardize the quality of potable water that is being delivered to GWD customers and may lead to citations.
Preventive maintenance is impossible.
Instead of anticipating problems, they are fixed when they arise. Staff members are hard pressed to complete everything that should be done in eight hours, and filters, for instance, cannot be changed as often as they should. On the average, operators respond to emergency calls twice or three times a week and once or twice a night depending upon the weather and water usage. In fact, although Corona Del Mar is 10 years younger than Cater Treatment Plant, a walk through the physical plant shows a certain amount of neglect when compared to Cater s well-maintained facility. Security guards just cannot do it.