The Regional Water Quality Control Board held a field trip on Friday, February 17, 2023 to our very own water reclamation plant - in other words, our sewer (dual purpose to this place—clean it up, ship it back to town)!
You can find the agenda here: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/board_info/agendas/2023/feb/agenda_feb.pdf
And the staff report here:
There was the opportunity to have the public attend, and I'll bet I was one of the first to sign up, if not the first. I haven't been back since the grand unveiling in 2016. http://losewersaga.blogspot.com/2016/04/dignitary-stuffed-ribbon-cutting.html
I can't possibly describe how much fun this was! I'm sure it held other meaning for the officials there, learning about the successes of recycling the water, seeing their edicts carried out to perfection, some time out of the office even, into fresh air and a cosmically beautiful setting for sewage treatment.
Yes, I said fresh air. There was NO SMELL, except where tubes were pumping sludge into giant bins for removal to someplace that I can't recall now. We moved upwind. In 2016, there was a faint earthy aroma around the big aeration and clarifier pools. Not this time.
There were so many people there that we broke up into three groups to tour, each led by a person that was an actual worker at the plant. The man who oversaw staff was there too, and I wish I was better on remembering names, plus I failed to write them down. The plant is beautifully run. The descriptions of what we were seeing as we toured were clear, understandable and fascinating!
I was highly impressed with the aesthetics. The place looked identically clean to how it did in 2016. In short, it was SPOTLESS. There was even a guy pulling weeds who deserves recognition. Not a stray blade anywhere. Pristine probably isn't an accurate enough word to describe what I found. I have seen restaurants less sanitary looking.
You probably did not grow up in the 1950s and 1960s like I did. You may not be a fan of old sci fi movie like I have been my entire life. The tall, rocket ship-like tank of some sort, the name of which I failed to get, brought me happily back to two favorite films. The Man from Planet X and The First Men in the Moon. All that was missing was the Martian.
