About Karl

Career History

• Karl Seckel was elected to MWDOC in November 2020.

• Karl was appointed to the MET Board in January 2023.

• Prior to becoming an elected official, Karl completed 40+ years of professional engineering experience in technical and policy issues in water in Orange County, Southern California and Statewide.

• Karl’s work at Municipal Water District of Orange County has been to assist the 27 MWDOC member agencies (cities and water agencies who receive water and other services) to work together to improve water supply and water system supply reliability in OC and Southern California.

• For Karl, being a director at Municipal Water District of Orange County started with getting elected from Division 4 in 2020 to represent the residents of Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Seal Beach. But issues at MWDOC also involve providing imported water and other services to cities and water districts throughout Orange County. Furthermore, MWDOC appoints four board members to represent MWDOC and influence policies and programs at Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MET), the main importer of water into Southern California from the State Water Project and the Colorado River. So being a Director at MWDOC involves policies at the local level, the Orange County level, the Southern California level, within the Colorado River Basin Area and Statewide issues within California. It takes a lot of time to understand and navigate such a system – Karl’s years of experience and his recent two years on the MET Board have provided the training necessary to become an effective director.

• The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MET) is governed by 38 directors from all over Southern California. MET is one of the largest water agencies in the world and has an annual budget approaching $2.5 billion and about 1950 employees. MWDOC has an operating budget of about $10M and a water purchase budget of about $200 M and a Choice Budget (with our member agencies) of about $2 million and serves a population of about 2.4 million in Orange County.

• Karl has had a long and varied career at MWDOC. In his early years he supervised the operation and maintenance of the Allen McColloch Pipeline (AMP), a $100 M pipeline construction project in 1980 that runs from Yorba Linda through Irvine and ends in Mission Viejo, originally serving 11 retail agencies.

• Karl was involved with several expansions of the AMP, including being involved in the design, construction, financing and operations of the expansions. The AMP was interconnected with the South County Pipeline in the early 1990’s which allowed water to flow all the way to San Clemente and involved bringing four more agencies onto the system.

• For about 5 years of his career, Karl was involved in a huge policy issue involving the sale of the AMP to MET to bring about $85 M back into the local economy, plus negotiating to get MET to pay for the pumping at the South County Pump Station, another enormous savings. The negotiations involved working among 18 agencies and closed in 1995.

• In the late 1990’s Karl worked for several years to bring about a consolidation of Municipal Water District of Orange County with Coastal Municipal Water District (a smaller sister agency running along the coast from Newport Beach to San Clemente), another savings of efficiency within Orange County and an improvement of services to the Coastal agencies.

• In the early 2000’s Karl became involved in “Reliability Planning” and investigating ocean desalination as an alternative reliability source for Orange County. Karl has been instrumental in advancing several reliability studies and investigations to examine how water systems can continue operating and serving customers and businesses during major events such as earthquakes that might knock out the import system. Karl’s studies led to the 2006 Agreement between MWDOC, OCWD, IRWD and the South County Agencies to move groundwater to SOC during emergency events, a major reliability improvement.

• Karl led research and operational investigations between 2004 and 2013 for a slantwell ocean intake system at Doheny State Beach that allowed ocean water to be accessed through a test well. Slantwells tapping the ocean are protective of the ocean environment and do not result in impingement or entrainment of fish larvae or other marine organisms, they do not include construction in the ocean, and the water is naturally filtered through the sands and gravels of the offshore aquifer thus avoiding pre-treatment costs to clean the water prior to sending it to reverse osmosis membranes.

• Karl’s most recent Orange County Water Reliability in 2018 involved an examination of Orange County’s existing and future reliability out to the year 2050 under four scenarios with various levels of investments in future water projects involving two climate change scenarios. The modeling work was completed by an engineering consulting firm and examined historic hydrologic traces from 1922 to 2016 as modified by the climate change implications. The study indicated that demands could be met out into the future with appropriate investments in new water supply projects and water use efficiency measures. Additional investments in water supply projects were recommended for South Orange County for both water supply reliability and to meet demands during emergency events.

• Karl’s career has also involved work related to the Water Emergency Response Organization for Orange County (WEROC) to provide coordination among the water and wastewater organizations in Orange County for emergency response planning, emergency activations and recovery events. MWDOC helped to form WEROC back in 1983 and it grew into a premier organization and integral partner in the Orange County Emergency Operational Area for emergency coordination and response among the water and wastewater agencies. It is the only organization like this in the State.

• Over his career, Karl has been involved in seeking and securing grants to help offset the local costs of investments to Orange County consumers for water resources projects and activities.