Jim Blake introduced his guest Pete Beard of the MWD, Diane Masseth-Jones introduced Pari Hakim, Past president Lee Brocket introduced Andre Fahie of the Boy Scouts, and Albert Napoli was our program speaker.

Announcements: President Bill Schenk announced an interesting fact that due to the generous donations on behalf of the club, it was calculated that to become a “100% Paul Harris Fellow” club, an additional amount of only $29.50 per member is needed. Soon, it will be announced how payment can be made.

Ken Kaisch commented that the online Rotagram consists of 100% recycled electrons, but feels we’re entitled to use new electrons. This reminds me of the atom that commented to another atom that it had just lost an electron. The other atom asked, “Are you sure?” The first atom responded, “I’m positive!”

Marty Burbank reminded us to much applause that Theresa Harvey will be honored by the YWCA soon and encourage everyone to show their support by attending or going online to http://ywcanoc.auction-bid.org/micro2.php to bid on items.

Vern Andrews brought our attention to the blue flyers on our tables which are to be used to nominate community organizations for a Community Investment Award. Submissions are due February 18, 2015.

Kathy Gach encouraged us to arrive early for next week’s speech contest.

Larry Bennett used his recent opportunity drawing winnings to purchase a George Foreman grill from President Bill Schenk.

Winston Creel will continue to be available with Collage Concert tickets for the March 21 spring fundraising concert at Meng Hall at Cal State Fullerton.

Contact Joe Arnold for sponsorship opportunities. JArnold@fullerton.edu.

Recognitions: Rani Goyal educated me at our table and then the entire club on the correct pronunciation of her first name. It sounds remarkably like “Ronnie”. Rani courageously fined herself first for missing some previous meetings. She then fined Mike Oates for an upcoming Birthday and Miko Krisvoy for having a birthday today! Kim Barlow impressed the entire club by naming more than the required minimum of three names of Henry the VIII’s wives. She escaped the $1.00 fine that everyone else ended up paying. We were reminded that the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion took place 29 years ago.

Opportunity Drawing: - Lucky Jim Williams gave a valiant attempt at drawing the red chip and was very close to winning the $56 prize.

Program-

In introducing our speaker, Albert Napoli of the Metropolitan Water District, Thad Sanford shared that he had been on a MWD bus tour as have several of us. Jim Blake was acknowledged as a director for 24 years.

The MWD was organized in 1929 to bring water to Southern California. Since then the population of this area has seen an average growth of 150,000 people each year. The MWD provides ~50% of the regions 6 county water supply. Water is obtained from Northern California and the Colorado River. Mr. Napoli shared that the Northern Sierra snow pack (in the very northeast corner of our state) is getting low, commenting that it would take several heavy storms to get us back to average.

The Delta Smelt fish is a protected species which interferes with us receiving about 30% of the water we could otherwise receive.

We are currently in the lowest 4% water availability in the last 100 years.

While the MWD used to be primarily into engineering, it is mostly into prediction of, management of and strategizing how to procure water for our area. Mr. Napoli explained that we have several reservoirs around the state banking water and while helpful, conservation can’t get us out of a drought. It’s possible that tiered payment for higher water usage is coming. Rebates for pulling out turn and for use of artificial turf drought resistant plants and landscaping, as well as for high-efficiency washing machines will help. Technology like “smart sprinklers” use soil moisture or even weather reports to gage how much to water the landscaping. Currently, nine out of ten people over-water their properties.

For those that didn’t know, Mr. Napoli noted that the water reclamation plant in Fountain Valley rigorously cleans some waste water and incorporates into our tap water. What used to be called “Toilet to Tap” is now referred to as “Showers to Flowers”, which is admittedly a bit easier to swallow!

The meeting was concluded when Mike Oates was brought up to lead us in the reading of the Four Way Test!

Please remember to get your ticket orders in for the Collage Concert on March 21st.