Keep Monitoring On Course In Pebble Beach

“From management to the field operators, our District's fiduciary responsibilities concerning collection system operation are the same as any other sewer operators. If we ever had a spill in our service area, the 'beheadings' might be a little more public and spectacular than others, but the result will be the same for any unprepared operator. The Federal and State EPA mandates are quite clear, no spills. Those kind of press conferences are unacceptable to our board members,” says Frank Rose, District Maintenance Manager for the Pebble Beach Community Services District. With construction mishaps, fiber upgrades and normal maintenance, more and more “copper” phone line services (dedicated or dial-up) are subject to interruptions. Add in the economizing that most local telephone companies are being forced into, and hour-long problems are turning into days. Couple this with a “zero tolerance” by District managers and the EPA, and redundancy starts to become standard operating procedure.

The Best Solution
A few months later the District was given a demonstration of the Mission Communications cellular based SCADA/monitoring system by Dave Nemiroff of Nemiroff, Monahan & Associates, a consulting engineer to the District. “I had read about the Mission system in trade magazines, but because of the low price and my prior experiences with cellular, I really didn't think the system would meet our expectations. But my customer seemed to be at an impasse, so I arranged a demo,” says Nimeroff. “We were down right amazed at the capabilities and simplicity of the system. If it worked as advertised, we felt we had a solution,” says Nemiroff. A trial installation was agreed to.