The Central Contra Costa Sanitary District in Martinez has been operating a Free Recycled Water Fill Station since October, 2014. In 10 months, they have learned quite a bit about procedure, human nature and how to more efficiently give free recycled water away to the thousands of residents willing to haul recycled water home for use in their yards. Just recently they have made some changes that I’ve noticed and thought I would share them with you.
- Weekend hours changed – Saturday & Sunday 8AM to 4PM,
- 9 new employees hired to run fill station,
- Paper log sheets have been replaced with a laptop, a drivers license scanner and custom software,
- Traffic control measure setup to ease flow of traffic in a once rarely used section of street,
- More hose bibs installed to accommodate more flow (launched with 3, up to 7 total),
- Takes about 5 minutes to fill a 275 gallon tote
- A new recycled water pipeline was run to increase pressure on the line
- Yard signs are given out for free to users who ask,
- Fill station data sets can be produced lightning fast, compared to the hand entry from paper log sheets.
I went by today to snap some photos for this post. Here’s what I found.
New signage at entry gate.
Touch screen laptop and drivers license scanner.
Custom built software interfaces with scanner.
Everything moves along just fine. Sure you still have to wait, its like getting gas at the pump, but this gas is free and it makes your plants happy.
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