As Hollister residents receive the water provided by the San Benito County Water District, they might take a moment to thank Jeff Cattaneo for his work in making sure that it is clean, fresh and abundant. Cattaneo, 64, the district’s operation manager, retired at the end of January after over 20 years of service and, according to people he worked closely with, will be missed.
Sonny Flores, vice president of Division 5 of the water district, worked with Cattaneo for 18 years and credits him with taking the lead on several projects that have greatly benefitted county residents.
“He has done a terrific job,” said Flores. “I am really proud of the relationships he was able to build to complete projects like the West Hills Water Treatment plant and the crosstown pipeline, which provides high-quality water to most of the city of Hollister and the Recycled Water Project, which brought recycled water out to the farmers along Wright Road and Buena Vista Road. He’s always been there, always available and ready to go.”
As San Juan Bautista finally works its way out of the fresh water and wastewater problems that have plagued with problems for over a decade, City Manager Don Reynolds said that Cattaneo’s support has been a great asset.
“Jeff’s experience and dedication have been critical to the city of San Juan Bautista,” he said. “Without him, we wouldn’t have been able to come up with solutions for our water issues. We’re going to miss him greatly and we really appreciate his leadership as well as his having included San Juan Bautista in his priorities.”
While he was born in San Luis Obispo, his roots stretch into Hollister through his mother’s side of the family and through his grandfather, who owned Pedrazzi’s Welding Shop.
“I have always had a close connection to the town,” he said. “During my summer breaks from school, I would come down and work at my grandfather’s shop. And when I graduated, I returned to Hollister and worked there and at the old Alpha Beta Market.”
After a year and a half, he returned to San Luis Obispo to work at his other grandfather’s business, a meat company called Cattaneo Brothers.
“I stayed there to run the business until it sold in around 1992,” he said. “I wanted to stay on but it was just not the same for me, working for someone else rather than working for family. So, I took my savings and went back to school at Cal Poly to work on getting a degree in engineering.”
He focused on remediation, the process of cleaning industrial pollutants out of contaminated groundwater.
“There was a Unitel refinery down there with a significant issue and they were giving Cal Poly a million dollars a year to try to figure out how to clean it up,” he said. “That gave me a good base for groundwater modeling and I learned how underground hydraulics work; how the water flows and what the impacts are.”
Returning to Hollister, he took an interest in the San Benito County Water District and, when told by then general manager John Gray that there was a position open for an engineer, he applied for it.
“It sounded interesting and I thought, ‘What the heck,’” he said. “So, I was taking care of all the engineering duties for managing the groundwater and any other things that came up, like managing the water from the Hernandez and Paicines Reservoirs and the San Benito River, along with monitoring the groundwater.”
As deputy district engineer, Cattaneo oversaw the creation of the wastewater treatment plant.
“At one point there was a cease-and-desist order for building new homes because of problems at the old wastewater plant. The water district has always been very concerned about groundwater quality in managing the basin and we were working with the county and the city to find a solution. And what ultimately ended up being the wastewater treatment plant is out there today.”
Having resolved that problem, the district focused on an issue similar to what San Juan Bautista faces today: the available drinking water was very hard and home water softeners were increasing the pollution feeding into the wastewater treatment plant.
“We looked at groundwater demineralization,” he said. “Basically, running the water through a system that would take the salt out, which would be incredibly expensive—around $200 million. We thought there had to be a better solution and we found that if we built surface water treatment plants and used a federal contract, we could do it for much less.”
The result was a partnership with San Benito County Water District, Sunnyslope Water and the city of Hollister to create two new treatment plants.
“We ended up spending just under $50 million and are able to deliver 6.5 million gallons of water a day to the city of Hollister and Sunnyslope and ultimately San Juan Bautista,” he said. “It has been a win-win for everybody.”
On retiring, Cattaneo said he thinks the water district is in much better shape now than when he first started working there.
“Rather than being just an agricultural district that delivered agricultural water, we have the two water treatment plants that are delivering a service and benefit to the community,” he said. “We have a groundwater management plan that’s in place. Financially the district is very strong. And there’s never been a lot of controversy about what we need to do. We’ve been very focused on moving forward and we are getting things implemented now rather than just studying them.”
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