Tim Paez, a Wastewater Control Inspector for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s (SFPUC’s), Wastewater Enterprise, Collection System Division (CSD), helped set up wastewater sampling sites throughout San Francisco for COVID research. A "once in a lifetime" experience that he says was influenced by his early childhood and life experiences. He didn’t know it at the time, but his early years of being a Boy Scout for 10 years and getting outdoors and camping helped him contextualize the importance of the natural environment to healthy urban living.

His mother worked for the U.S. Coast Guard doing logistics and training, so he moved around the east coast quite a bit.

“Neighbors used to say, ‘Our life is everyone else’s vacation!’ We moved from bases in New York City to New Jersey. I grew up in downtown Manhattan, then way out in remote parts of the Gateway National Recreation Area, the sibling national park unit in the New York Metro area to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area here in the Bay.”

But it was Paez’s time in New Jersey that he recalls seeing something incredibly beautiful.

“I went to a public college in the New Jersey Pinelands and - oh my goodness, it’s like Hobbiton or the Shire from the movie, Lord of the Rings. It’s this magnificent, wild place with streams, forests, and lakes everywhere, and beaver ponds that helped create the Pine Barrens – it’s really an idyllic and verdant part of the state. There are a lot of pine trees, and long winding rivers like the Bass and Batsto run through it. I learned very quickly that the area was only so beautiful because of environmental protection policies: Congress had made it the first federally protected National Reserve.”

While Paez knew he was interested in studying water resource management and environmental monitoring, it wasn’t until one week before he started his undergraduate program at Stockton University in New Jersey, that he experienced something that would really solidify what he wanted to do, career-wise.

A Tropical Vacation and a Gnarly Ear Infection Inspires Public Service
“I had just gotten back from a vacation; surfing around Oahu in Hawaii and I had a terrible ear infection. I had a sore throat and a stabbing pain in one ear. I went to the doctor and he took one look and said, ‘yup you have a really gnarly ear infection’ – and he explained that I likely got it from the ocean waters of Hawaii."

Paez came to learn that this was a common occurrence off the shores of Oahu –  because they get so much rain and have a combined sewer system (like San Francisco), which often overflows.

“I’ll never forget, something just clicked for me. It was environmental health meets public health and it was a personal experience I could relate to.”

Four years later, Paez received his degree in Environmental Science with an emphasis on Water Resource Management and Hydrology, a minor in Sustainability and Environmental Policy, and a GIS certificate.

“It’s so important to have a clean environment, clean air, clean water… there’s so much you can just experience and feel in how a place maintains its natural resources.”

As for the question of what Paez would have done career-wise if it weren’t for the experience with the ear infection?

“Goodness,” he chuckled. “That’s an interesting question. I like to think I would have eventually found my place at this intersection of public and environmental health, and science and policy; it would have just taken me a little longer to find it. That personal experience early on really made it visceral.”

Navigating Through Uncharted Waters

The SFPUC’s Wastewater Enterprise has made many contributions during the pandemic from advancing COVID research as well as helping the City at large during the pandemic. From the sampling of wastewater at convalescent homes to learning about the spread of the virus to being Disaster Service Workers to deliver food to the under-served, stay tuned as we share “Navigating Through Uncharted Waters,” a series dedicated to highlighting the contributions of SFPUC’s wastewater workers.

In Part One of the series, we brought you the story of how the SFPUCs Wastewater Enterprise stepped in to help with COVID research at the beginning of the pandemic. In addition to this contribution, many wastewater workers stepped up in more ways than one.

In Part Two of the series, we caught up with Peter Ng, a Wastewater Technician who continues to help sample wastewater for Covid research. At the beginning of the pandemic, he was tapped to be a Disaster Service Worker for San Francisco helping to deliver food to the vulnerable population afood deliveries to vulnerable communities, including senior citizens, as well as translating in Cantonese.