In the steamy summer of 1929, William Faulkner worked the night shift at a power plant in Oxford, Miss. During six weeks of his solitary nocturne, the young novelist wrote “As I Lay Dying,” one of the books cited when Faulkner later won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Mary Fierros doesn’t expect similar inspiration to strike when she becomes the first female dam tender in District history. Instead, the 19-year-old community college student will be content just to get the 7 p.m.- 7 a.m. shift done. “I’m not really nervous, just really excited,” she says, “considering I’m just a student and they’re giving me so much responsibility.”

Fierros, who’s studying forensics at Rio Hondo College, has worked as a secretary at the District baseyard for 16 months. Eventually, she wants to become a police officer “and maybe later a detective,” she says, so she was looking for a challenge outside the office. “I got tired of the paperwork and I was hearing good stories from guys out in the field. And they treat me like one of the crew.”

Ed Kohnman, who himself tended dams for two decades, now supervises the nine structures operated by the District. He enthusiastically has been pushing Fierros for the nighttime post at Whittier Narrows (Rio Hondo) Dam. “She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty, not afraid to work any job, anywhere,” he says. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a woman even offer. It’s a male-dominated section because it’s mostly manual labor. But she filled sandbags with us on the L.A. River project, so she’s fit.”

Adds Terry Wotherspoon, facility manager at the baseyard, “She’s very good at what she does for us.”

The Rio Hondo Dam, some 15 miles east of downtown District headquarters, comprises a vital part of the region’s water conservation program and drinking water supply. Residents of Montebello, Pico Rivera and several other communities rely on the dam for what comes out of their spigots, so its operation must be constantly monitored and maintained. “All the cities below (the dam) have their straws in,” says Kohnman.

One recent morning, Kohnman and veteran tender Vic Renteria shepherd Fierros and another student, Alex Martinez, around the dam explaining how things work. All are wearing the brown uniform shirts of the Corps field hand, complete with castle logo and their names embroidered on front. Fierros clearly is proud to see red thread (which matches her nail polish) declaring “dam tender” on hers.

Simply put, a southern California dam tender serves as the lone cop on the beat for the Reservoir Operations Center (ROC) at District headquarters. The center acts as a command-post nervous system, continually processing information gathered at the dam sites, then regulating water flow. Los Angeles County also is in the loop. Much of the process is performed by computers hard-wired to telemetric measuring stations at the dam and upstream and downstream on the rivers.

But there’s plenty of room—and need—for the human element, which is where the tenders come in. A machine might register an object weighing 1,500 pounds stuck near one of the gates. But only a pair of eyes peering through binoculars into a horizontal rainstorm can tell whether the object diverting the river’s flow is an abandoned car, a huge log or Sasquatch.

And only a trained team member can then clamber down the 25 steps from atop the dam to the hoist room. There, to double-check the four yellow gauges inside that show the river’s inflow and outflow within 1/50th of an inch. (The hoist room is a shoebox-shaped dungeon that runs the length of the dam and houses the tender’s office, gate motors, monitoring gear and a backup power generator.)

Renteria, who spent several dry-docked years as a Navy civilian diesel mechanic on such noted vessels as the Queen Mary and Howard Hughes’s super-secret Glomar Explorer, shows Mary and Alex the ropes from one end of the hoist room to the other: “I give ROC a report and they may say, ‘We need you to operate your gates,’ and I’ll set the gates to whatever level they say, long as the water doesn’t start going over the banks or eroding the banks. Opening up the gates is like flushing a toilet, except it takes 30 minutes for a gate to close or open.”

Renteria spends 20 minutes walking the youngsters through the crucial steps to run the backup generator. If, for instance, power goes out during a storm, the dam must be able to keep functioning. A red, yellow and black diesel generator the size of two upended soft drink vending machines serves the purpose, and the student tenders refer to a framed set of instructions as their instructor checks their work. “The job is easy,” says Renteria, who’s worked for the Corps more than two decades. “You just have to keep your mind on what you’re doing.”

Martinez holds the instructions as Fierros inserts a finger like a dipstick into the generator to check its water level. “Why are the lights yellow?” she asks. “These lights tell you what?” wonders Alex. Mary dons red earmuffs as Renteria cranks up the generator, and a jet-wash of sound ensues until Kohnman signals to shut it down.

“When you’re here, you’re in charge,” Renteria explains. “When you’re here, it’s just you in this place. You’re going to hear funny noises when you’re in here by yourself. You gotta keep your radio on. You’re talking people’s lives, houses…”

Injects Kohnman: “When you’re here, you’re running the dam!”

If the prospect of such lonesome responsibility is daunting to either Mary or Alex, they don’t show it. Fierros, who has cousins working for the Corps downtown and as police officers, lifts weights several times a week at a West Covina gym. At 5-feet-9, she’s tall enough to reach all the switches and gauges at the dam, but feminine enough that she collects Bratz Pack dolls. Does she feel any extra pressure, being the first female dam tender? “No, just excited. I feel special because Ed has chosen me. Out here, I’m treated as equally as other people in the Corps.”

Martinez, from El Monte, has spent two years with the District while studying graphic design at East L.A. Occupational College, and hopes to latch onto a permanent position with the District. “Right now we’re alternates,” he says, “which means if somebody can’t be here, they’ll call us. But I’d like to be there even if somebody else is working so I can watch them and learn.”

Like airline pilots, combat grunts and beat cops, dam tenders endure hours of boredom punctuated with moments of sheer terror. “The first time you do it by yourself, you’re scared,” says Renteria. “You don’t want to push any buttons. But once you get your system down, you just do it over and over, the same way.”

In Faulkner’s 1930 novel, the Bundren family is carrying their mother’s coffin for burial to another county. They must cross the flood-swollen Yoknapatawpha River, but one bridge has washed out and another damaged. They try to use it anyway, and their mules and wagon are swept downriver. They barely save the coffin.

In other words, sounds like it’s time for a dam tender.