School Groups Tour Ocean Beach Treatment Plant

By Ryder W. Miller

In the hope of making San Francisco residents more aware of the city's effort to clean wastewater before it enters the ocean, the SF Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has organized tours of the Oceanside Treatment Plant and Southeast Treatment Plant for San Francisco students.

Tour guide Ed Rodriguez, an 11-year employee and now the Senior Stationary Engineer at the Oceanside Treatment Plant, thinks people are surprised to hear him say he enjoys giving the tours.

"I love this job," said Rodriguez, also a surfer. "That is my job - keeping the water clean."

Rodriguez started as a wastewater examiner and rose up the ranks to Grade 4 certification. Rodriguez went to Abraham Lincoln High School and lives with his wife in the Sunset District.

Rodriguez said the tours last from one to three hours and familiarize students with the various treatment steps the city's sewage and rain-water runoff undergoes. The PUC also gives school groups curriculum materials about what happens to waste after it winds up in the sewage system.

The multi-stepped treatment process uses screens to remove solids and grit before undergoing primary and secondary treatments, where biodegradable materials are removed and the resulting effluent is chlorinated and deodorized.

The biggest problem they have at the plant is with plastics that wind up in the system.

"If people would not flush plastics that would be a tremendous help," Rodriguez said.

Much of the plant has an unpleasant smell, but the children who go on the tour are not given medical facemasks. Rodriguez said that medical facemasks wouldn't make a difference. However, the students are given hard hats.

The final treated product is discharged four-and-half-miles out to sea, except when it rains heavily. In such cases, wastewater and storm runoff mix and effluent is also released at Ocean Beach, near Lincoln Way and Vicente Street, and at Fort Funston.

"We get a lot of overflows," said Mike Paquet, an eight-year environmental coordinator for the SF Surfrider Foundation (a local chapter of a surfing organization). "We know when it is going to be bad."

The PUC tests the local waters surrounding San Francisco weekly, with extra testing after it rains. It communicates with the public through signs, a hotline (1-877-SFBEACH) and an interactive website at www.beaches.sfwater.org.

Paquet thinks they are doing a good job at the plant.

"I think they are doing pretty much a great job for what they got going. They have done their updates over the years," said Paquet. "If they had more money to do more and better, they would be doing that."

Paquet said the real solution is to reduce flows into the treatment plant. He suggested a watershed approach.

Recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, which has loosened the guidelines for the treatment of rainwater runoff, may result in there being less pressure on the City to treat the storm runoff that mixes with sewage during heavy rains.

"I don't think it will change anything until the City applies to have its permit changed," said Ed Ueber, manager of local national marine sanctuaries.

Rodriguez said the waste from the entire City, including runoff after a rain, winds up in the treatment plants before it is washed out to sea. New underground areas have been built to capture some of the city's rainfall overflow because of the overflow problems, especially with large rainstorms. There are rainwater collection tunnels surrounding the outskirts of San Francisco.

Rodriguez said the City rarely experiences storms so bad that it would inundate city resources.

"But if it rained a lot, it would be a problem," Rodriguez said.

The plant, which also captures and recycles some solids (paper and aluminum) and methane gas, processes more than 100 million gallons per day.

The ultra-modern Oceanside Treatment Plant, which has successfully operated in a residential area despite some detractors, is 90 percent automated and has only half a dozen engineers. Every street drain in the city is hooked up to the PUC's sewage system.

The SF Zoo, the Oceanside Treatment Plant's neighbor, works with its neighbor. Plans are underway to create areas for animals at the Mammal Conservation Center above some of the treatment center's underground areas.