Pictured on the front cover is Chris Ramirez from Huntington Beach Public Works.

Huntington Beach is a seaside city within Orange County in Southern California that serves almost 200,000 residents. Incorporated in 1909, it is located 35 miles south of Los Angeles and 90 miles north of San Diego. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west, and with Costa Mesa/Newport Beach to the East. With its 9.5-mile (15.3 km) of beautiful beach, mild climate, and excellent surfing, it has long been known as Surf City. Huntington Beach officially adopted the Surf City USA nickname in January 2008 and it holds more than 50 surf contests each year, including the legendary US Open of Surfing. 

Named for railroad magnate Henry Huntington who orchestrated its development, the city is now an epicenter of activity and entertainment with wide, sandy beaches. Huntington Beach offers residents a charming community with ideal weather, a diversified economy overflowing with good jobs, a wide variety of housing, an excellent educational system, boat marinas & numerous parks.

Quietly working behind the scenes, The Huntington Beach Utilities Operations is responsible for maintaining 15 storm water pumping stations. 

Storm Water Maintenance is responsible for cleaning the 135 miles of storm water pipes as well as the 1,700 catch basins that can fill with rain, trash or materials from residents and businesses. This function is extremely important, as without proper storm water control, areas of the City could be susceptible to flooding during storms.

The City is also responsible for maintaining 350 miles of wastewater piping and 27 sewage lift stations which, combined transport an estimated 24.3 million gallons a day of wastewater for treatment.

Huntington Beach meets the majority of its water demand from groundwater wells located throughout the City from ten operating water wells that vary in depth from 250 feet to 1,020 feet, with production varying from 450 gallons per minute (gpm) to 3,000 gpm. Total production from all ten wells is rated at 30,000 gpm. 

Their water system includes four reservoirs with a combined capacity of 55 million gallons and four booster stations with a combined capacity to pump 44,365 gpm into the water system. The distribution system consists of approximately 590 miles of pipeline, 5,670 hydrants and over 15,000 valves.

The City’s Utilities Division makes extensive efforts, along with a diligent Water Quality Monitoring Program, to ensure that the public drinking water system exceeds the standards of the EPA and the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).

We recently visited one of their newest stations called “Well 1A”, and the operator gave us a tour of the facility which has been in operation for only about 3 years. 

In this particular location, an empty lot with a submersible well pumping 500 GPM was upgraded to 3000 GPM and facilities were added that blended in with the neighborhood. 

After looking at several solutions to control this new station they decided that instead of going through the expense of a large PLC installation with a company that did generic controls, they would work with a company that was focused on Municipal water solutions.

They Installed MurCal’s Series 800 control panels to operate the well pump and monitor chemical levels. Many Municipalities use these S800 Panels for their pump/flood/lift Stations. The 800 Series is a Full Featured Municipal Pump Control Panel, designed to work with a multi-engine system. It is an all-purpose, highly configurable engine controller, designed to meet the needs of nearly every municipality. The controller is designed to be a municipal-specific control platform and incorporates the necessary hardware to efficiently execute these projects.

The Huntington Beach team started using MurCal’s panels in the mid 1980s originally for their flood control and have been very happy with this solution’s reliability & service and they felt the price-point was fair. They particularly liked the fact that MurCal is based in Southern California hence the service calls could be handled quickly.

Many of their older stations now have panels that are 25 years old, making it harder to maintain and upgrade if they encounter a problem. According to the veteran operator, they have had such a good experience with MurCal that they want to continue that relationship by upgrading all fifteen of their stations from the older panels, which vary from the Series 500, Series 555, and Series 600, to the new Series 800s in the near future. They feel the new panels are even better technologically and in manufacturing, they are solid and they just work, they don’t break. 

The operator, Chris Ramirez, we talked to additionally stated that they had the challenge of a mix of electric motors and natural gas engines. There were many electric motor options, but people with experience with large gas engines were harder to find and MurCal’s panels were the best in their experience with the throttling and staging and keeping everything under control.

Using innovative technology can save money in the long run and can improve efficiency and performance, especially during natural disasters and emergencies of all kinds. Taking the time to do it right before there is an emergency is the best insurance for the times when you need it. We’re with you every step of the way, making sure your installation is perfect and that you understand all the benefits of your new system from day one.

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Learn More about our Municipal Water Department here:

https://www.murcal.com/municipal-water

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Schedule a Call with us to discuss your needs!

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