By Chris Hoff 80 million gallons of waste water are treated daily in San Francisco, much of which ends up as sludge--a gelatinous pile of human excrement and other organic solids. All this sludge, once treated and turned into "biosolids," has got to go somewhere; and what better place than to the feed-crop fields of Northern California to be used as fertilizer?
In this story I will investigate how--and if--it is possible for all this sewage, sludge, and waste water to be adequately treated to the point that we trust it being reused on our farm lands. I will also set out in detail the path our waste takes to get from the toilet, to the farmlaands, and ultimately back to the food we eat (via farm animals). Clearly something has to be done with all this waste; finding an economical and environmentally feasible answer, however, is not so straightforward. By interviewing civil engineers, soil scientists, waste water officials, members of the EPA, and residents in Solano County, I hope to inform on a topic that otherwise is largely ignored.
San Francisco and its 800,000 inhabitants produce massive amounts of waste water and sewage each day. Few people, if any, know what happens to sewage once it is flushed, emptied, poured, or spilled down the drain. That all of the liquids eventually get pumped out into the ocean, and all of the "solids" get shipped off to Solano County and elsewhere to be used as fertilizer for animal feed-crops, seems shocking.
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