Spaeth is Federal Engineer of the Year nominee

Travis Robert Spaeth is keeping his eyes on big goals—maintaining 24-hour water all over the CNMI and drinkable water from the tap to help the community save money. (Contributed pPoto)

Travis Robert Spaeth, who is the Safe Drinking Water manager of the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality, is one of 21 nominees vying for the Federal Engineer of the Year Award of the National Society of Professional Engineers in Government.

Spaeth, who is a federal engineer appointee of the U.S. Environmental Protection in the CNMI, was recently recognized by the EPA as its 2020 Engineer, which qualified him, along with engineers from different federal agencies, to vie for the 2020 NSPE Federal Engineer of the Year plum. The award recognizes engineers employed by a federal agency worldwide.

“Getting nominated to be this year’s 2020 NSPE Federal Engineer of the Year is one thing, but actually receiving the award and being selected as EPA 2020’s Engineer is really kind of a big deal to me as it recognizes my efforts [after Super Typhoon] Yutu and the whole push to put the CNMI on the path of recovery,” he said.

“As Commonwealth Utilities Corp. project manager then and now in my new position at BECQ, it feels like it is some kind of a ‘feather in your cap’ situation and it is reassuring that we are doing something right,” he added.

The 2020 NSPE Federal Engineer of the Year recognizes leadership, highest standard of conduct, technical excellence, and community service. According to Spaeth, one is nominated by a supervisor, which submits a package that includes qualifications and the last 18 months of work.

“The two main things that happened for the last 18 months was, first, I was a big part of the CUC 24-hour water for the entire island before Yutu and, second, the recovery efforts after Yutu hit the CNMI…but I can’t take credit for all as a lot of people were there and we worked together very well,” he said.

 “Twenty-four-hour water has been a goal for many years and I was a pretty big player in the development, management and changing the way we run the water system in CUC. Then [Super] Typhoon Yutu hit and immediately we lost 24-hour water but we were able to bring it back much faster and more effectively than Soudelor,” he added. Typhoon Soudelor hit the CNMI in August 2015.

Part of Spaeth’s work at CUC was mainly to restore the water supply after Yutu to make sure everyone had water in their homes. “Even though it wasn’t drinkable yet, we made sure that homes have water for even the smallest things like flushing the toilet. I recall just going into ‘disaster engineer mode’—keeping track of the day, where we are and where we are headed,” he said.

“The big part of our job was because we lost power. We still needed to bring in generators to the most effective spots. [It was the Federal Emergency Management Agency] that brought generators to where the best spots were for that. It was really an inter-agency coordination afterwards,” he added.

Spaeth is on his sixth year of working in the CNMI. “I’m a U.S. Public Health Officer to begin with and, historically, the U.S. Public Health Service has filled positions of need in hard-to-fill locations such as the CNMI. The engineers are generally funded by EPA and I’m on assignment at BECQ through EPA, reporting directly to BECQ administrator Eli Cabrera,” he said.

“I was with CUC in 2010 and left in 2012 after being commissioned in the PHS Indian Health Service in the States for four years. Then I was requested to come back by CUC in 2016 and eventually EPA requested if I could be considered for the work in BECQ which is a higher position, which coincides with our plan to stay on Saipan long term,” he added.

Spaeth said that transitioning from CUC to BECQ was not hard, as both jobs uses his knowledge of the water system. “I recently took over for retired Capt. [Derek] Chambers at BECQ and run the Safe Drinking Water Program as well as double as the technical adviser for BECQ and provide assistance to the CNMI Coastal Resource Management Office. The Safe Drinking Water Program regulates and oversees sover 70 drinking water systems in the CNMI that includes resorts and a few apartments that have their own drinking water systems, bottled water companies, and, of course, CUC. …We regulate them based on the Safe Water Drinking Act.”
“We also run the Mariana Islands Operator Association where we regulate and test operators to certify them and we make sure that they move forward with their continuing education. We also manage the ‘well’ program which includes all the public and private wells across the island by issuing permits on the new wells and managing flow of data to make sure we are not over pumping the aquifer among other things,” he added.

Spaeth’s work at BECQ ultimately entails ensuring safe water drinking compliance. “…there is a lot of data input so we are safekeeping laboratory results and putting it in a data base that will eventually get uploaded to the safe drinking water information system or SDWIS which is what EPA headquarters and the federal government requires to make sure that we have safe drinking water,” he said.

“We are trying to implement all the historic data into a new data base system to help us monitor and ensure the safety of all drinking water programs in the CNMI,” he added.

As for the future, Spaeth is keeping his eyes on big goals—maintaining 24-hour water all over the CNMI and drinkable water from the tap to help the community save money.

“I have a big vested interest in keeping this 24-hour water for the islands and as far as I know we are running on 24-hour water and the only time CUC shuts water is to do repairs…certain parts of the island you can drink water from the tap and some parts water from tap remain salty but over time I believe we can improve that as all homes should have good water to come out of the tap. People from Rota drink water out of tap so why can’t we have that on Saipan? Long-term goal is to make people comfortable with that and it’s doable,” he said.

“Right now, people pay $2 or so for a 5-gallon jug but if you are paying $2 to CUC, you get about a thousand gallons…next step is to keep building better so we can start pumping less water out of the ground and that will improve the aquifer over time…in theory, if CUC makes improvements and other water systems are regulated and managed properly, this hopefully make water quality better and would help everybody to save money,” he added.

The 2020 NSPE Federal Engineer of the Year Awards ceremony will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 14, 2020.