According to the San Francisco Baykeeper, San Bruno released 16,575 gallons of untreated and partially treated waste water into the bay during the storms of January 17 to January 23. While this is not as much as other waste water treatments facilities around the bay, it is still significant enough to be treated as a major spill. On January 19th San Bruno City CS reported a sewer main failure that resulted in 1250 gallons of discharge, none of which was recovered.
For San Bruno, waste water management is handled as a joint powers agreement with the city of South San Francisco. South San Francisco operates the water quality control plant that handles treatment of sewage for both cities. According to the San Bruno website, every day nearly 3.4 million gallons are pumped through the Shaw road pump station to the water quality control plant and eventually discharged into the bay two miles out via a joined outfall pipe. The storms of the last few days generated discharge of raw sewage and partially treated sewage mixed with runoff water directly into the bay. This includes nasty ingredients such as pesticides and mercury, the stuff that makes people sick and kills wildlife.
For it’s part, San Bruno has recognized that it’s current waste water infrastructure is aging. During his ’state of the city’ address, Mayor Ruane spoke to a plan to assess the needs of the waste water infrastructure of the next year so that actions can be taken. There is a comprehensive action plan in progress including a 10 year analysis of the waste water infrastructure, including pipes and pump stations. While it may be unfair to say San Bruno is wholly responsible for the overflow spillage of the last storms, it certainly does need to act to stop from the continued contamination of our precious resources.
The problem that the city will face is money. While the report will outline the needs of the infrastructure and prioritize them, fixing the issues will cost. State funds are not the answer. California has a multi-billion dollar backlog in upgrades and not enough money to do them. Waste water is one of the four city enterprises that generates revenue for the city. This enterprise clearly relies on the infrastructure to continue to support itself. The choice is clear; San Bruno will require a reinvestment in this infrastructure not only for it’s financial health, but for the health of the bay as well. The state water board would seem to agree; spokesman Willam Rukeyser told the San Francisco Chronicle that “We would much rather cities fix their problems than spend monies on fines”. As citizens, we should urge San Bruno leaders to continue to take steps to evaluate the aging waste water infrastructure and to continue to work alongside the water board to address the issues.
Hey joe, just a few quick comments about your article. To say that we (SSF/SB WQCP) sent nasty ingrediants that makes people sick and kills wildlife to the bay is a bit of an exaggeration. During the storms in question The plant performed as it was designed. At very high flows we are required by our state permit to bypass certain processes so that the system doesn’t back up and cause raw sewage to flow to the bay. I can asure you that our effluent (discharging water) to the bay had been treated to the states required level (chlorinated to kill pathogins and dechlorinated). As for the raw sewage spill in san bruno I cannot comment on but i do Know these type of incidents can occur in any city for many reasons and are not necessarily due to neglect( sometimes mother nature gets the best of us). The financial issues in regard to maintaining a cities infrastructure are not unique to san bruno(all cities face these).Any how just wanted comment, any questions drop me a line, take care.
Very well, sir. The perspective from those in the know is welcome. Check out the resources below that were used as part of the research for this post. San Bruno is directly implicated for the spills by these sources but the SSF WQCP is not. Do you think they are talking about one and the same?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/31/BABS1BPLR1.DTL
http://www.baykeeper.org/