Conservation Of Resources
The RWQCP is committed to protecting our environment. We endeavor to recycle and reuse the treated products of our plant, namely, clean water and incinerator ash. California's limited water supply will pose greater challenges for our future, and the RWQCP, in cooperation with others, will look for new ways to reuse water. The RWQCP reclamation program began in the late 1980s in response to the drought and continues today to conserve a precious resource and reduce pollutants in the bay. We also make sure that our incinerator ash is put to good use for safe land application and soil amendment.
Biosolids
The RWQCP's treatment process produces approximately 23 tons of dry sludge a day. The plant's incinerator reduces the dry sludge to approximately 4 tons of pathogen free ash. The RWQCP recycles its ash for beneficial reuse. In 1981, the ash yielded a million dollars' worth of precious metals. Today, due to the effective pretreatment programs, the ash from the RWQCP has very little metals content, but it is a low cost source of phosphate. Phosphate is one of the major nutrients for plant growth. The ash is currently used as soil amendment.
Water Reuse
The RWQCP is classified as an advanced treatment facility. We provide tertiary, or advanced, treatment of wastewater in addition to primary and secondary treatment. We currently disinfect and filter two million gallons per day of wastewater to the highest standards for unrestricted beneficial reuse per California Code of Regulations, Title 22. Reuse expands the limited water supply in California and reduces plant discharge to the Bay.
The treated, or "reclaimed", wastewater irrigates the Municipal Golf Courses in Palo Alto and Mountain View as well as Greer Park in Palo Alto, provides dust control at construction sites via tanker trucks, and supplies fresh water to a 15-acre marsh southwest of the plant which was a former wetland cut off from San Francisco bay by diking in the 1920s. The marsh provides habitat for endangered species, migrant birds, and wildlife.
