Working as a senior environmental compliance inspector for a medium-sized city may seem like a repetitive job, involving weekly and monthly sampling, inspections, and monitoring. However, Baylie Martinez has found ways to make her role in the City of Ventura anything but routine.
As a third-generation member of the Ventura community, Martinez understands the vital role her job plays in keeping her community safe. She is the first line of defense for the City as she carries out plan reviews and inspections for cross-connections or backflow devices, and industrial discharges into the sewer system. This role is essential, but she has also discovered another aspect that’s not generally part of a compliance inspector’s job.
“She is an ambassador of the water and wastewater systems, attending public outreach events and conducting tours for the public,” said Gina Dorrington, general manager of Ventura Water. “Baylie is personable and an imaginative environmental crusader who represents the City of Ventura and the Tri-Counties Section exceptionally.”
Dorrington explained that Baylie excels in the realm of public outreach. She has collaborated with staff to incorporate information about the VenturaWaterPure program into tours at the Ventura Water Reclamation Facility, educating the public on its focus on recovering, treating, and reusing water before it is discharged into the Santa Clara River Estuary. These efforts have helped the City develop a source control outreach program to ensure compliance with potable reuse regulations in preparation for the construction of the advanced water purification facility. She has conducted over 25 tours and attended several community outreach events.
“She has a natural connection with children and makes learning about the sewer fun. She conducts a matching game focusing on the 3Ps (poo, pee, and paper) with children, earning a junior sewer inspector sticker badge for their participation,” Dorrington said. “Baylie has also created a presentation board with materials adhered to it to demonstrate what residents should not put down the drain. She also volunteered as a guest judge with the MERITO Foundation to review water quality projects submitted by local students.”
In 2024, Martinez applied for and received a CWEA P3S Grant that provided local schools with transportation to attend field trips to the Ventura Water Reclamation Facility and the Santa Clara River Estuary.
Martinez has worked as a Senior Environment Compliance Inspector with the City of Ventura for five years. Before that, she worked as a wastewater inspector for the City of Oxnard.
“I have always gravitated to the water-related environmental jobs,” Martinez said. “My first environmental job was for a non-profit organization working on a riparian restoration project in a local waterway.”
Martinez monitors the City of Ventura’s sewer system compliance by reviewing reports, performing inspections, and collecting samples. She evaluates plan submissions for food facilities to ensure proper grease control devices and correct waste stream designs. As part of a two-person team, she conducts over 380 food facility inspections annually, as well as inspections of industrial dischargers, various commercial monitoring programs, and final construction inspections. Daily activities include reviewing self-monitoring reports, following up on inspection findings, tracking delinquent backflow testing notices, and preparing for educational outreach.
Once again, this all seems quite routine for an environmental compliance inspector. However, there are those days, like one last fall, when a complaint arose about a strong smell of turpentine in the air. Martinez and her team promptly went to the location of the odor and detected the scent immediately.
Martinez said they could have halted the investigation when they noticed a painter’s truck in the area, as they might have assumed he had dumped some turpentine down the sewer. However, upon further investigation and due diligence, they found that several miles away from their original starting point, the odor wasn’t turpentine at all, but rather a gas leak under a gas station that was pressurizing in the sewer pipes and had vaporized to the Lower Explosive Level in the sewer.
“We avoided what could have been a very tragic situation that day by closing the area until the situation was mitigated to a level that protected public safety,” Martinez said. “Luckily, this doesn’t occur every day.”
During her off hours, Martinez volunteers for CWEA’s Tri-Counties Section and serves as treasurer this year.
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