San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant

On May 31 I visited this water treatment plant for extra credit for APES. I'm posting the pictures here instead of facebook because somehow uploading an album with pictures of my e.c. trip seem pointless and obnoxious since fb isn't a blog. I suppose I could put this in my "world" blog, but it's hard to draw the line between my two blogs. When is it personal? Does this experience count? At the same time, my personal life is "a piece of the world," so technically I could just use one blog. Sigh.

This is the main office.

This was the old office, back when the plant only had 9 employees. Now the plant has 200.

Pumping things for primary treatment.

Digesters where pollutants are dissolved through anaerobic processes.

The plant is quite big.

These are the "vats" that are for primary treatment, but this one is empty.

A full one.

So the polluted water just sits here; the oils rise to the top, and the sludge/solid waste sinks to the bottom. Quite nasty.

This is tertiary treatment I believe. I didn't put pictures of secondary treatment up because it's essentially the same as primary except the water's cleaner.

This reminded me of Africa.

Large engine room that pumps oxygen for the bacteria in secondary treatment.

This is where they pipe their cleaned water. It goes to the bay.

Then the bus took us on a tour of the Don Edwards SF Bay Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. I thought this sign was cute.

Vultures eating something.

The same levee where the recycled water goes, except on the opposite shore.

A walkway you can take.

It is so gorgeous.

Salt ponds.

A lot are kind of dried out.

I plan to come back here because it's so beautiful (at least to me). It makes me think of how America used to look back in the days of the Oregon Trail.