Sewer Tour Successful!

The third tour of our Los Osos Wastewater Treatment Plant on September 24, 5:00-6:00 p.m. was quite a success. Around 60 of the curious showed up to see what was going on out there behind the cemetery. Some of us will go anywhere for free food—cookies and little water bottles were on hand to keep one from fainting from the heat (which was pretty abominable). That was smart on the County's part, and I for one am grateful! 

A snappy color print out was handed around so that one had a map of the tour and what the various buildings and black pits were named. I took photos and will include them after the scan below that I did of the County handout.

John Waddell headed up the tour and we learned some useful bits of information. 75% of the plant is complete. The Septic Tank Reuse program will go before the Board of Supervisors October 20, this year. January 2016 is the most likely date for the next Town Hall. There will be monthly meetings starting next March when we all start connecting. It will take around a year for all of us to hook up and this process will be done in phases. More to come on that. (Click on the image to see a larger size.)

You really couldn't see much of the Secondary Clarifiers or the Oxidation Ditches from the ground.

On our walk in, a drone buzzed around overhead. I waved and smiled. I hope the film will be edited into a video with a score like last time - it was really, really, quite coolski.

Administration Building is on the left above. The Water Quality Lab will be inside. On the right, the roof is on but the Chemical Facility beneath it is not in yet.

Administration Building.

Effluent Pump Station. Note the port-a-pottie. Several of those were scattered around (so you really know that this place is not up and running yet.....).

Ramp at the Effluent Pump Station for trucks to unload septage (only from the Los Osos area).

Shooting into the sun was not the best idea..... This is REW Pond 2 on your aerial view up top.

This is the wall between REW Ponds 1 and 2. I'm not sure how this works or why it is there.

This is REW Pond 1.

This is the front of the Dewatering Facility. Not sure what those gun-like things are....

Stormwater Pond. The ponds, when full of course, will be able to accommodate helicopters that scoop water to fight fires.

This is a view of the fencing around the facility. The Storm Water Pond is to the left in this shot.

Serious piping to the left of the Sludge Storage Tanks. Those sludge tanks look better from the aerial shot, there really isn't much to see from the ground.

Project Manager John Waddell explains the tertiary filter process. There are 20 discs of cloth media inside the tanks. These two small units can process 1 million gallons a day. Hmmmm. Sounds suspiciously like the 2005 sewer technology that got crashed by 19 votes - the membrane bioreactor plant at Tri-W (to be PC, the "Midtown Site"). To the right of this is the area for the UV disinfection, where lots of lights kill the bugs remaining. To the left is the chemical facility as some chlorine must be used to keep stuff from growing in the pipes.

To the east of the tertiary filters is this cheery patriotic hued tanks tableau. This set-up is there for fire suppression, should there be the need. There are a few small wells on the property, but none with enough output to stop a fire, hence the storage of water for instant and ample use.

The green monster is a hefty-sized generator inside the Electrical Building. Work WILL go on if the power goes out.

Then we all walked back to where we parked our cars along the sewer plant's fence and at the cemetery. We passed by two clumps of the stuff in the photo below.

I know Pampas grass is invasive and horrible, but back-lit as this was, it was rather beautiful.

And that was the end of our one hour tour.