Reference Documents

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Don't Fall In!

Today I heard a cautionary tale which may be useful to pass on as next year we will be decommissioning our septic tanks. I will not reveal names involved or the location, other than to say it happened in this county of San Luis Obispo—recently, to a person who bought an as-is home. It happened at a home using a septic tank, although, apparently, it can happen at homes where a septic tank has been abandoned improperly after a sewer hook-up.

(Note: Many in Los Osos have not pumped their their tanks in 30+ years. We have not pumped ours in 10, and actually don't have much of an idea as to where it is located. We have a suspiciously verdant couple of trees that we have never watered, so.....)

Anyway, this person was digging around in the yard to find the septic tank on this recently purchased house. He/she had an idea where it was and was removing soil over what he/she thought was the concrete lid. Chopping about 6" into a pile of dirt however, down the shovel suddenly shot; he/she caught it, fortunately, in the nick of time. The "lid" to the septic tank it turned out, was made out of corrugated fiberglass panels, the concrete lid—gone. The person quickly exited the lid area, grateful that it had not collapsed.


(I am guessing as to the color of those panels, but see-through was just too ghastly to contemplate.)

SO.....when decommissioning time comes, and you might want to be doing some of the digging yourself, WATCH OUT, unless you already know what is down there. Septic tanks can KILL.

For further reading, follow this link:

Saturday, September 26, 2015

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.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Septic System Reuse Options Meeting!

Off the County's wastewater webpage:

September 24, 2015: The project team and Central Coast Green Build will give a presentation at the 7pm LOCAC meeting on septic system reuse options for use when connecting properties to the wastewater project. For more information, review this draft Septic System Reuse brochure and visit the LOCAC webpage for the upcoming meeting agenda.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Doing It Right

I was at Noi's Little Thai Takeout in Baywood on Tuesday for lunch and saw something I'd only heard about before—cooking oil recycling. Naturally Noi's would do this right, as she does cooking right (in ten years of Thai food that I have eaten, never any meal was less than perfect).

What I saw was a tank truck and a hose that looked like one from Al's Septic.


Then I noticed this:


A guy with the hose just attaching it to some above ground outlet. I didn't want to be too obvious about this picture taking; I think no one would recognize him here so I won't get sued or anything. Anyway, the name on the truck was "Salinas Tallow" and the picture became clear.

This is what we need to do when our new sewer comes online peeps! NOT put fat, especially fat that will solidify, down our drains! Who know what we are doing now, it is an individual thing, and I suspect that we are all cheap enough to not abuse our septic tanks for our own good. But lest we forget, it will be a whole new era of flushing, one of flushing into into a communal pipe. What someone does downhill with grease could well affect what doesn't go down when we uphill flushers flush! Remember that London Fatburger post from some months back? 

I do sometimes have nightmares about certain sewer obstructionists who claimed a gravity system would fail as they, weeping and tooth gnashing, were forced to live without their beloved STEP/STEG system. I fear sabotage frankly, but it is probably very bad to put those thoughts out there just in case this idea has not yet been crocheted into an actual plot from strands of personal bitterness, rent hair, and bacon grease.

On another note, on the way home from SLO today, this was in front of me! Please click on the image for the larger size. It is always a jolly day when you can see the oversized license plate with "SHT2GO" in big red letters on Al's trucks.....ahhh, Los Osos, what a bubbly zest for life we have here!





Thursday, September 03, 2015

From Poop—Concrete!

Selangor, Malaysia: A study was recently published in the Pertanika Journal of Science and Technology on the potential for using sludge as an additive to cement! It may even lessen water permeability, thus increase durability, in certain grades of that most ubiquitous of building materials! 

This came about due to stricter environmental regulations on the disposal of sludge, due to its high, heavy metal content. 

What to do with this stuff? Get creative!! This might have world-wide implications for a lovely recyclement of tainted sludge!

You can access a news report on this here:
http://www.wateronline.com/doc/turning-sewage-sludge-into-concrete-0001?sectionCode=TOC&templateCode=Single&user=2124006&source=nl:43767&utm_source=et_10759433&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WOL_2015-09-03&utm_term=8B6151B5-326C-4D25-A47F-7FA24BE85D17&utm_content=Turning%2bSewage%2bSludge%2bInto%2bConcrete

Read even more here—and see some sludge photos too!
http://www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/Pertanika%20PAPERS/JST%20Vol.%2023%20(2)%20Jul.%202015/04%20JST-0464-2013%20Rev1.pdf

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

September Sewer Tour Sign-Up!

Here is the County info for the upcoming sewer tour!

"September 24, 2015: Upcoming Public Tour of the Water Recycling Facility construction site on Thursday, September 24 from 5pm to 6pm.  For more information and to sign up to attend, please contact Rosalyn Piza at (805) 788-2759.  Sign ups can also be sent via email to (rpiza@co.slo.ca.us). "