Rotagram for Wednesday, Aug 7, 2024

President Cathy Gach called the meeting to order and welcomed everyone in attendance to get up and circulate and greet each other.

Carol Morris gave the invocation and Mike Cochran gave the Pledge Of Allegiance.

Todays guests: Bob Jahncke introduced his wife, Beth., Zoot Velasco introduced his guest Kristina Karosh, Acting CEO, Hope Center for The Arts, Larry Bennett called out his Pacific Crest hiking buddy Steve Mayberry. And our great Speaker Rob Thompson General Manager of OC Sanitation District.

Presidents Opening - One of Rotary’s areas of focus is protecting the environment. This is an important issue that needs a collective effort, and Rotary Clubs around the world are taking action. Imagine a workshop where hundreds of people across the globe learn to transform waste into beautiful products. That’s exactly what happened at the global multi district workshop on upcycling for monetary benefits. Participants from India, Africa and the US discovered innovative ways to create upcycled items from used cartons, and discarded tires and sell them for profit.

Workshop attendees learned valuable skills and formed a network to support each other as Eco-Entrepreneurs – a win-win for the planet and for ther new business ventures called "TURNING TRASH INTO TREAURES”.

President Gach called up Larry Bennett and Steve Mayberry and be recognized for there almost finishing hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. They both have raised money for JOYA Scholars and the Boy Scouts.

Proposed New Members:
Douglas Yose, CEO Critenton
Beth Jahncke, Teacher
Jon Caffrey, Principal FUHS
Jeanie Stockwell, Honorary Member

Other announcements: Zoot Velasco wanted to remind us that his wife Monet with some of her Broadway friends was giving a fundraising performance a Muck tomorrow night at 7:30 to raise $10,000.

Lana Erlanson of Radiant Futures wanted to thank Rotary for helping in raising money to buy backpacks given out to 125 families. She thanked Cathy for coming out to help at the breakfast where they gave away clothes and needed materials. Amy Choi-Won volunteered to create our basket.

Bill Christensen said he was glad to be home from his trip to Toronto, Milwaukee, south Wisconsin and Iowa. Howard Minkley said that there were four tickets available for the Angel game on Sept 1st. This is service club month at Angel stadium $25.

President Gach announced that there would be a Rotary Board meeting 9;00m AM Monday August 12th at TNG Real Estate 2839 N Brea Blvd. We need to remind ourselves is that one of our goals is to make sure that we get as many like minded people into Rotary. Proposal cards need to in by before Mondays board meeting.

Last week we had a district person here talking about the District gala, and that every club is going to be contributing a basket for their gala, with at least a $200 value. We have some very talented folks in this club, and I'm just hoping that I get a couple of volunteers and we'll work together on a basket representing our club. Our club also contributed to an international grant that was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Calgary Heritage Park Canada They are doing is he is, putting on a an informational tour in Guatemala for any Rotarian, who would like to attend. They only take one representative per club. See Cathy for more information. President Gach also had one more announcement, that is our survey for our, holiday party, came in with results and we have a tie between you want a dinner event or a cocktail party. We raised our hands to vote on which we wanted to do. The results were Cocktail party 21 votes and Dinner hands were 17. (Cocktail Party won.)

Ricky Fair was our fine master and he fined Thad Sandford for his birthday and Patrick Hartnett was fined for his wife’s birthday. Bill Hite was fined $10 for not remembering his wife’s birthday. Ricky announced that his wife and himself are expecting there third boy in about six weeks.

Dick Ackerman introduced our speaker, Rob Thompson the director and general manager of the Orange County Sanitation District. He's been in the district since 1995. Orange county is world renown for our waste water recycling. They operate the largest indirect potable reuse system in the world. It is by far the largest. They do up to a 130,000,000 gallons a day converting sewage into drinking water. There's nothing like it on the planet. He talked about upcycling what we find in the water and turning it into useful products. OC Sanitation District is the 6th largest agency of kind in America. bigger than 13 states in this county. There job is to get all of that stuff floating in the water and process it, separate it and turn it into a useful products. The big deal is we aren't putting out a 190,000,000 gallons of water to the ocean anymore. So you think about this ultra pure water that's going through 3 more levels of treatment.

The water that we are putting out to the ocean is about 70 million gallons. And it still has lower parts per million and lower flow. So our treatment has gotten at least 6 or 8 times better than it was back in the eighties. And that's a testament to how we're trying to improve water quality.

The treated water is handed off to OC water district where they take our water and treat it a little more. They run it through a micro filter that micro filter is basically a filter like you think of any other, 5 times smaller than human hair but that's not good enough they take that ultra clean water that has been ultra purified and he puts it through reverse osmosis, which takes out viruses and any I mean, tiny tiny the only thing he shoves through those openings is a molecule of water. Ultra pure water. Who do you think gets the concentrate? That's right. So he takes ultra pure water that runs through reverse osmosis.

He then turns on some light bulbs and squirts in some peroxide, and that's what made it for treatment. So there you go. It's by the time they're done with it, the water is better than the water that's flowing down the Santa Ana River. This ultra pure water is put in the ground. It takes 6 months before it can reach the nearest municipal well. So it has to travel through sand, through gravel, at depths to get to the place where it's gonna be reused. So it it is ultra pure, ultra clean, and it has that time in the ground to mix with all the other water. Anything that might slip by, long gone. So that's why it's such an important process. That's why the world comes to see Orange County. They have visitors from China, from South Korea, Singapore, Europe, all over America, all over the West Coast. It is a wonder and it is located right here in Orange County.

We have a huge basin of depleted oil fields right under our feet. Why don't we think about taking some of our sludge and putting it in an oil field as oil field waste would be put in, injecting it down. It’s been studied it since 2008. They have a strategic plan that lays out all of our infrastructure and we're deciding where we want to go in the next 30 years. Every piece of both treatment plants has a plan for us to move forward over the next 30 years.

Always something in construction either being refurbished or replaced because it's wearing out. This is very hard duty for what we do. High temperatures, gritty, corrosive gases, all those things. Things are wearing things out. Technology is becoming obsolescent.

We have to always be investing and we're investing with the plan. We're solving all of our climate issues, all of our seismic issues, regulatory updates, technical obsolescence, wear and tear, all of that. OC still the almost the cheapest in the state. If we look at all the different cities charging single family residents, we are down at $371 a year.

Each home pays that much to us versus our good friends in San Francisco paying $1337 a year. It’s a great bank for the buck. The Orange County Sanitation District is the best in the world at what they do.

Before concluding today’s meeting, President Gach thanked all of today’s guests and our speaker before asking everyone to recite the Four Way Test.