NEWS: Leadership, transitions, and vision, a glimpse into the first 100 days of a new CEO

New presidents make their marks on America within the first 100 days of taking office. Does our new CEO expect to make her mark on water quality in her first 100 days?

Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells

Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells was tapped as our new Chief Executive Officer this month and she will assume the role officially once current CEO Julius Ciaccia retires February 10. It's inauguration week, so we asked Kyle about her vision, the peaceful transition of power, and her plans for her first 100 days.

"My vision is really about leadership," Kyle said. As an eight-year District employee and former director of Chagrin River Watershed Partners, she emphasized the role the Sewer District must play as a leader in water quality.

"We need to continue to be leaders on key environmental issues that affect our rivers, streams and lake, but also on the real infrastructure investment it's going to take to maintain the progress we've made and the progress we need to make."

PROFILE: "You'd think I just walked out with a PhD," retiring Weeden remembers a proud day 30 years later

Ray Weeden, a Westerly Security Officer in 1987, displays his certificate of completion of Wastewater Treatment Plant Operation classes.

If ever there was a story of someone working their way to the top, it’s Ray.

Ray Weeden is nearing retirement as Director of Operation & Maintenance in February after more than 35 years of service.

Born and raised on the east side of Cleveland, Ray worked a variety of jobs out of high school, including security gigs. Following a downsizing at the UAW plant where he was a security guard, Ray was out of work for 13 months, and went back to school full-time. When he heard the Sewer District was hiring, he put in his application. “I started at the District on May 25, 1981, a day I’ll never forget.”

WATCH: Reading Rainbow's visit to a sewage treatment plant reminds us how awesome LeVar Burton is

If you watched Reading Rainbow as a kid, or if you're still tuned in to today's incarnation of the PBS classic, then this episode proves the theme song's line, "I can go anywhere."

Host LaVar Burton takes a trip to and through a wastewater treatment plant. And while some technology showcased here differs slightly from how we operate in Cleveland, the process is largely the same, and the result is clear, fresh, safe water.

But you don't have to take our word for it.

WATCH: Kids asked Christen, "How can you stand the smell of wastewater?"

How can wastewater treatment plant workers spend hours around sewage and not get overwhelmed by the smell? Former Treatment Plant Operator and current manager Christen Wood gets that question a lot, and she said it's all science.

SPORTS: What would happen if Michael Phelps tried swimming in our tanks?

As swimmer Michael Phelps places more gold medals around his neck during these Olympic Games in Rio, we wondered how he'd fare in an environment more unusual than a 50-meter chlorinated pool.

Southerly first-stage aeration tanks

Could Phelps swim in one of these long bubbling channels known as an aeration tank? or perhaps the round in-ground-pool-like tanks nearby?

First, such a thing would not be a good idea, and the topic is not an invitation to try it. But second, the hypothetical does make for interesting discussion regarding the treatment process and the water's physical properties.

We asked our Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant Assistant Superintendent Dan Smith that question, turning our attention to two tanks along our common tour route: our clarifiers, and our aeration tanks.

WATCH: When we sense a disturbance in the Force, things tend to get messy. #StarWars

We don't think this is the Force George Lucas or J.J. Abrams had in mind. Still, clean water wouldn't be the same without it.

Our own treatment-plant Jedi Christen Wood shows us how force and the rarely-seen sludge "explosion" helps keep a sewer line clear and gives the Death Star's demise a run for its money.

RELATED STORIES:

• SPACE: How do astronauts pee in outer space?
• STAR WARS: "The flush awakens," 9 questions about Star Wars, sewers and sanitation
• TECH: How do toilets work on the International Space Station?

VIDEO: @Sewer_Chic's report from our Southerly plant shows there are no holidays off

Your toilet can't take an extended holiday. Which is one of many reasons our shift workers like Christen don't either.

Christen Wood is an Operator at our Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant and she was working on Thanksgiving with a number of her colleagues. She sent us this video after dinner, not only thanking her own family and co-workers who live the shift life, but thanking you, our customers.

We're proud to serve you all year long, holidays, weekends and snow days included.

RELATED STORIES:

• WATCH: Check out all of our Quick Clips videos
• PERISCOPE: We periscoped 5 quick questions with Christen
• HOLIDAYS: Wastewater doesn't take a holiday

PROFILE: From veterinary medicine to sewage treatment, here's how Christen "fell in love" with her unexpected career

A former lab analyst and now Wastewater Plant Operator, Christen Wood’s career path has led her from veterinary medicine to sewage treatment. We asked her about opportunities in Wastewater Operations.

How did you get into wastewater?

I sort of fell into it! The local paper ran a column on the “brain drain” in Ashtabula, why we weren’t able to get qualified candidates into jobs there. I wrote a thank-you letter to the editor for covering the topic, and as soon as the letter ran, the Ashtabula wastewater treatment plant called me and said, “We need you to apply now."

WOW: "Wannabe photog" captures lightning strike, eerie shelf cloud over Lake Erie

When storms pop up over Lake Erie, our wastewater treatment plant operators are ready. It's a bonus when someone has a camera ready, too.

These amazing images were taken by one of our consultants from Brown & Caldwell by the name of Nick Bucurel. Nick is on-call at all hours of the day as his job is to monitor some of our plant processes that are only operational during heavy storms. (It's a pilot process known as Chemically Enhanced High-Rate Treatment, or CEHRT).

Lucky for us, his Twitter bio says he's also a wannabe photog.

LIST: 7 ways back-to-school jitters are like treating wastewater

Parents, it’s that time of year again. And we can make a few connections between our work and your kids’ first-day jitters that you might not have expected. Class is in session.

1. Sure maybe it stinks, but where would you be without it?

OK, the end of summer may not stink in the literal sense (wastewater work has plenty of unique literal scents of its own). But while you might not be excited about your first day back, you need it. Same thing with wastewater treatment: You wouldn’t last long without it.

2. Your supplies list tends to be pretty pricey.

As parents, students’ supplies lists seem to make our jaws drop. A $198 million sewer tunnel like the Euclid Creek Tunnel, for example, tends to generate the same response, but when it can store 60 million gallons of water to prevent spilling pollution, it helps put things into perspective.

VIDEO: "Stinks, too."

Anthony Body has been with us for several months and he recently went on a wastewater treatment plant tour with his co-workers.

He grabbed his phone when he got to the bar screens, large racks that catch all kinds of floating debris that sewers carry into our treatment plant. If you never wondered where street debris and flushed garbage goes when it disappears down the drain, Anthony put it pretty simply.



If you think that's impressive, the whole process is worth checking out, too.

VIDEO: Whether you watch "Glee" or not, the irony here has got to make you laugh.

You never know what will make it through the sewers and into one of our three treatment plants.

And every wastewater plant operator has a story to tell. When we asked Southerly Wastewater Plant Operator in Training Christen Wood what was the weirdest thing she's seen, here's what she said.



You might laugh, "Glee DVDs in the sewer?"

Whether you like the show or not, it's not likely that someone "flushed" them. Most often, things like this start in the trash and somehow make it to the curb in a combined-sewer neighborhood (where stormwater and sewage flow in the same pipe). The combined flow weaves its way through the sewers and into our treatment plant, in this case our Southerly plant in Cuyahoga Heights.

Again, you never know what our crews will find in the sewers.

ENTERTAINMENT: #Watermen series will take reality TV to a new low, and it looks filthy.

Reality television is about to hit a new low: Sewers, and the team who keeps things flowing.

United Utilities—one of the UK's largest water and wastewater service providers—will star in a six-part documentary series called "Watermen: A dirty business" on BBC2 starting today.

ISAAC: Forecasts keep us on our toes even in Ohio

Some flood events, like this one along the Cuyhoaga River along Old Rockside
Road in 2011, can't be predicted. But when they are, we prepare accordingly.

As the remnants of Hurricane Isaac make their way north—and as we hope for the safety of residents and first-responders in Isaac's wake—local forecasters were predicting significant rain in Northeast Ohio this holiday weekend.

While the threat has tailed off, the storm raises the question: How do Sewer District crews get ready for these kind of anticipated strong storm (and therefore sewer flow) surges?

Prediction, preparation, and personnel.