Infrastructure Day

Infrastructure Day…..The day started with results of the blind survey the class completed reflecting the ranking of what was infrastructure. Robert Baker, Senior Vice President of County Bank spoke to us on the topic of the different sources of funding of infrastructure projects and how outside banking supplements the bonding measures to start the major projects through out the county.  Marjie Kirn from Merced Association of Governments gave a brief update on the progress of several identified Byway and Highway projects in Merced County including the new Mission overpass and the up coming underpass at G Street.

The class then boarded a bus for a tour of the County Landfill. At the Landfill, we surveyed the current site, which will soon be closed, and the new future section, which will be the next to be used. The class viewed samples of the several layers of linings that are “welded” into the pits to keep the gases and toxic liquids from seeping into the ground dirt.  

We were next treated to a tour of the MID Franklin Yard followed by a great lunch .Kyle Ford and Brian Kelly gave a presentation on MID water and electric services.  MID uses over 700 miles of its irrigation canal system to get the water to more than 2,200 end users, most of who are farmers that farm more than 150,000 acres in Merced County.  Finally we made the journey out the Merced Waste Water Plant.  While there we learned that as much as 10,000,000 gallons per day of Merced’s sewer water makes its way to the plant.   The plant is schedule for a 65 million dollar upgrade that will happen over a three year period and bring a lot of new technology to the purification process.

Upon our return to County Bank offices we were able to listen to Frank Quintero who works for Merced in Economic Development. He explained about the three types of industry we try to attract to Merced County: Commercial, Retail, and Industrial companies.