Wastewater Master Plan
The rebuilding and modernization of San Francisco’s sewage and stormwater infrastructure offers a once in a generation opportunity to address long standing problems with its approach to the most basic of municipal functions. Today, stormwater and sewage are considered waste to be mixed together and quickly pumped downstream for treatment and ultimate disposal into the Bay or ocean. This leads to a host of problems:
- Aggravation of environmental justice concerns in Bayview Hunters Point, where 80% of the San Francisco’s sewage and stormwater is treated in an outdated plant that brings with it the continuing burden of odors, flooding, and blight;
- Hundreds of millions of gallons of annual overflows of minimally treated sewage into the Bay and Ocean during moderate and heavy rainstorms;
- Hydrological starvation of the west side aquifer that feeds Lake Merced and Pine Lake;
- Increasing demands for capital intensive and ecologically unsustainable infrastructure facilities; and
- Missed opportunities for reclamation of sewage and stormwater for use in neighborhood beautification, habitat expansion, and environmental education.
The new master plan will chart a 30-year course for the system, offering an unprecedented opportunity to embrace a forward looking alternative that transforms what is now a waste collection and disposal system into a resource reclamation and reuse system.
