Millions of Californians are staying home. Millions are working from home.
Ten are living at work.
“We have locked down the site out here. We have ten employees that are doing the job of those 42 employees,” said Poseidon Director of Communications Jessica Jones.
Poseidon operates the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant just north of San Diego. One week ago, ten of their regular employees moved into rented RVs parked on the plant’s property and began a 21-day stretch of daily 11-hour shifts to keep the plant operating.
This is not a glamorous job.
Jessica Jones, Poseidon Director of Communications
“Those employees will be self-contained, no human contact for 21 days,” said Jones.
She said the quarantine-at-work will protect the employees and protect a locally-generated water supply. The desalination plant pumps out 50 million gallons of clean, drinking water every day.
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“I think it’s a good thing,” said Jim Fisher, the Director of Operations and Maintenance at the San Diego County Water Authority.
The SDCWA partners with Poseidon to deliver the water to hundreds of thousands of customers in San Diego County. Fisher said many of the SDCWA employees are now working from home.
He added water does not carry the COVID-19 virus and emphasized San Diegans don’t need to stockpile water bottles.
“The public water supply that we deliver remains safe and it will continue to remain safe,” said Fisher.
“The safety of water is not an issue,” reiterated Jones.
She said it helped that ten Poseidon employees volunteered to quarantine themselves at work for three straight weeks.
“This is not a glamorous job and these employees are truly sacrificing because they’re away from their families.”
