Long Beach Water Official To Lead
Metropolitan Water District Desalination Committee

LONG BEACH, CA - Long Beach Water Commissioner, Helen Z. Hansen, the City’s appointed representative to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), has been selected by the Board of Directors to head that agency’s Desalination Committee. The MWD is the largest water agency of its kind in the United States, importing water from the Colorado River and the Sacramento Delta for over 300 retail water agencies, including the Long Beach Water Department. MWD serves 17 million people in Southern California.

The MWD is at the forefront of developing water management strategies to address California’s water needs. The Desalination Committee will oversee the establishment and implementation of seawater desalination research and development and incentive programs for MWD and its Southern California member agencies.

In December, the MWD Board voted to provide a $250 per-acre-foot subsidy to five of its member agencies, including the Long Beach Water Department, for the production of desalinated seawater. “There has been no stronger advocate at the MWD, or anywhere else for that matter, for moving forward with seawater desalination than Commissioner Hansen,” stated Kevin L. Wattier, General Manager of the Long Beach Water Department.

Commissioner Hansen was also recently selected to serve as Secretary of the Board for the MWD. She was appointed to serve as a Long Beach Water Commissioner in 1996. A year later, in 1997, she was appointed to serve as the City’s representative to the MWD Board of Directors by Mayor Beverly O’Neill. She is retired from her position as Superintendent of High Schools for the Long Beach Unified School District after a 38-year career. She is a graduate of Stanford University.