Mackenzie is an EBMUD welder and plant maintenance worker.
Improving the “underground forest.”
Mackenzie is in her first year at EBMUD and is already moving on up. Originally hired out of Oakland’s Laney College as a machinist and welder, she’s now apprenticing with experienced wastewater workers on her way to achieving a journeyman level in the trades.
Mackenzie is fascinated by what she calls the “underground forest” – the pipes and pumping systems that make the East Bay’s wastewater plant work. She still does a lot of welding to fix or modify equipment, but also spends her days learning how to improve (and in some cases overhaul) the valves and chemical systems in wastewater pumping stations and wet weather stations throughout the Bay Area.
Mackenzie is learning firsthand about how wastewater solids are removed, treated and reused— including the process to convert waste into energy. She lives near the wastewater plant and now feels more connected to the town she calls home.
“There’s a whole city under the city that no one ever sees – it makes me think about space very differently.”