Photo borrowed from cweawaternews.org
For the monthly fill station stats article, I’d like to focus on the people that make recycled water happen, because recycled water isn’t created by magic. It’s made by possible by thousands of people who believe in protecting the environment. Be it operating equipment, troubleshooting electrical, mechanical and instrumentation problems, and maintaining the pipeline infrastructure buried in our communities.
Many of these employees are members of the California Water Environment Association and are responsible for cleaning California’s water and returning it safely to the environment. CWEA’s members’ play an important roll at every residential recycled water fill station in California. Thank you, CWEA members by supporting this drought conscious program and continuing to protect public health and the environment. Interested in a career in water? Visit cawaterjobs.org
In addition to sharing how much recycled water was hauled away by users at each fill station, we’d like to praise the public employees who make it all possible!
Every Labor Day, most salaried workers get the day off to reflect on the “creation of the labor movement and its dedication to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country.”
What better way to thank these hardworking men and women than to shine the spotlight on a segment of America that keeps water clean, moving and safe for our use. This month, I asked the agencies behind your favorite residential recycled water fill stations – how many people are responsible for collecting, treating and distributing recycled water? Here are their answers.
Delta Diablo
“It takes all of the employees’ efforts to do what we do. Team work is key to Delta Diablo’s success – so we would have to say every single person at the District is responsible for the collection, treatment and distribution of the valuable resource and should be recognized for their contribution,“ wrote Angela Lowrey, Public Information Manager at Delta Diablo in an email. “Current staffing level is 76.”
The residential recycled water fill station at Delta Diablo gave away 551,000 gallons* to 480 registered users. This is an increase of 25 users from July 2016. Since their program started on July 11, 2015, Delta Diablo customers have hauled away 3,785,000 gallons.
Gallons distributed monthly at Residential Recycled Water Fill Station, 2016
*Delta Diablo annually provides over 2 Billion gallons of recycled water for industrial, municipal, commercial and residential use in East Contra Costa.
Yucaipa Valley Water District
“The Yucaipa Valley Water District has a staff of integrated operators of 16 employees that are certified to work our water treatment plant and our wastewater treatment plant. The recycled water fill station is staffed by the Public Works Department staff of 20 employees. While it may sound like a lot of employees, the staff here is highly cross-trained, so they all play a role in the recycled water service,” wrote Joesph Zoba, General Manager at Yucaipa Valley Water District. “The District has a total of 63 full-time employees.”
Speaking of the residential recycled water fill station, on August 9th, the 500,000 gallon mark was surpassed. By the end of the month, 156,274 gallons had been hauled away by 103 registered users. This brings their total supplied since November 2015 to 636,734 gallons.
Yucaipa Valley Water District – Total Gallons Served
Scotts Valley Water District
“Eighteen people work for Scotts Valley Water District (SVWD) and 10 people are directly involved with the collection, treatment and distribution of recycled water!” wrote Eileen Streller of SVWD.
The residential recycled water fill station first opened on Wednesday August 26th, 2015. In the year since, 158,187 gallons have been hauled away by 88 registered users. This past month, 33,157 gallons were served and 1 new customer signed up.
Scotts Valley Water District – Monthly Gallons Served
Las Virgenes Municipal Water District
“The District has 117 employees. About 26 are directly involved with collections, treatment and distribution of recycled water,” wrote Water Reclamation Manager, Brett Dingman at Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (LVMWD).
In August, 6,852 gallons were picked up by 83 registered users. This is an increase of 5 users from last month. In total, 46,609 gallons have been hauled away by users of the fill station.
LVMWD – Monthly Gallons Served
City of Redwood City
Alexandria Kenyon, Communications & Marketing Multimedia Analyst at the City of Redwood City wrote “The Water Utilities Division of the Public Works Services Department works to distribute recycled water to Redwood City customers in accordance with the State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Drinking Water standards. The actual treatment of recycled water is performed by Silicon Valley Clean Water (SVCW), the wastewater treatment plant.
We have approximately 26 staff members in the Water Utilities Division, which is made up of two sections: Water Maintenance and Water Resources. The Water Maintenance team maintains the physical distribution system (tanks, pipes) while the Water Resources team manages the programmatic and operational elements such as regulatory reporting and the Fill Station program.”
78,799 gallons of recycled water were given away in August 2016 bringing the yearly total (July 5th 2016 to September 2nd, 2016) to 154,557 gallons. Last year, 437,000 gallons were given away, so since program inception, 591,557 gallons of recycled have been hauled away by Redwood City residents at the mobile fill station. The number of registered users didn’t change this month, it is still at 40.
Dublin San Ramon Services District
“We have 113 employees, 16 in plant operators, 12 with field operations and 24 with electrical and mechanical maintenance,” wrote Sue Stephenson, Community Affairs Supervisor at Dublin San Ramon Services District (DSRSD). “So, 52 are directly involved with the collection, treatment and distribution of recycled water.”
August proved to be a big month for the District, as 2,900,000 gallons were picked up by 3883 registered users. This means 25 additional customers signed up to haul recycled water home. Since Thursday, June 12th, 2014, DSRSD has given away 41,977,000 gallons of recycled water through the residential fill station. This is the most of any fill station in California.
City of Brentwood
As written in “Water Resource Recovery Facility – City of Brentwood” – daily operation of the treatment plant is run by 12 people – 4 operators, 2 mechanics, 1 electrician, 2 lab techs and 3 collections workers. It takes the whole group to run things smoothly.
Last month, 2,928,000 gallons of recycled water was hauled away bringing their total to 29,286,000 gallons since their residential recycled water fill station program started on Tuesday June 16th, 2015.
City of Brentwood – Monthly Gallons Served
There are many other agencies that provided data to the blog this month, their data can be seen below.
I should note – some agencies are giving away water by the millions of gallons per month while others are giving away less, why? DSRSD started the fill station program and received a majority of the press, plus they’re located in an area that had some pretty steep water restrictions. The same goes with the City of Brentwood whose treatment plant is located about a mile from everyone’s home. In Brentwood’s case, its a vibrant farming community where residents have the capability of hauling heavy loads (lots of trucks/people with trailers).
Stats of agencies that contributed this month. Overall, usage much higher.
Residential recycled water fill stations give away millions of gallons of water to customers to haul home so they can water their plants, successfully saving one gallon of drinking water for every gallon of recycled water. In other words, nearly 11,000 California residents have saved a combined 113 million gallons of recycled water, an increase of almost 7 million gallons from last month. Many more millions of gallons of recycled water are distributed daily throughout the state, but this blog doesn’t track pipeline flows, only residential hauling.
It is worth noting the addition of 107 people who have signed up to haul recycled water home. This great to see as California is still in a drought, but proof that the residential recycled water fill station program is still going strong.
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