San Francisco Wastewater Master Plan - Challenges and Approach

Thirty years after the previous comprehensive plan was prepared, the City and County of San Francisco is developing a new wastewater system master plan, in order to meet the City's wastewater and stormwater management needs for the next 30 years. In addition to conventional driving forces such as aging infrastructure, facility deficiencies and regulatory compliance, the City also needs to evaluate and address public demands for environmental justice and green, sustainable technologies. On the other hand, certain potential improvement options could have tremendous cost implications.The San Francisco Wastewater Enterprise understands that it needs to take on these challenges with a proactive and pragmatic approach. A comprehensive public participation program will be implemented in order to promote public involvement in the project development, and public support for the resulting plan. Applying up-to-date technological tools, the existing collection and treatment systems should be characterized for identifying their performance deficiencies. We should maximize the utilization of existing facilities, while taking innovative approaches to enhance system performance. “Green” technologies, especially in the area of stormwater runoff reduction and desynchronization, shall be incorporated wherever feasible. Ideas from public demands shall be developed and evaluated to enable a fair comparison. The sustainability of resulting systems shall also be incorporated in the criteria upon which various alternatives will be evaluated.This paper description the approach and possible alternatives of the wastewater master plan.