DID YOU KNOW Baltimore has a Solar Powered Water Wheel Trash Interceptor?

So you don’t know what a solar powered water wheel trash interceptor is? Until recently I didn’t either. However it turns out that Baltimore bought one to clean its waters.

Basically for approximately $700,000 less than Redwood City’s recently acquired fire-boat a city can have a solar powered water wheel trash interceptor designed, constructed and installed. Yearly maintenance depends on the amount of trash collected but in the case of Baltimore runs about $100,000 per year. In the case of Baltimore the water wheel trash interceptor drains about 50,000 acres of very dirty watershed and in the process collects about 300 tons of trash in one year.

The water wheel trash interceptor is much more effective than a trash boom. The reality of boom curtains is that when the trash gets moving like right after a rainstorm the boom is either quickly overflowed from above or pushed up and circumvented from below so when most you need it the boom ceases to work. One of the reasons that the maintenance of a water wheel trash interceptor is what it is is that during and after a rainstorm the trash collection dumpsters fill up quickly. Just this past week, Baltimore had a rainstorm, and according to Clearwater Mills’, John Kellett, (www.clearwatermills.com) the two dumpsters in the interceptor filled up in less than four hours which meant they had to be emptied or actually replaced with new empty dumpsters.

For the way it really works is that the dumpsters in Baltimore’s case are on a separate loading barge, when they fill up they are moved to a disposal site where they are exchanged with empty dumpsters. The full dumpsters are then taken to a local waste energy facility for additional power generation.

Now imagine a solar powered water wheel trash interceptor installed some place along Redwood Creek. Instead of having regular monthly creek clean ups manned by a few faithful regulars and maybe two city-wide yearly creek clean ups, which at best collect three percent of the garbage that flows down the creek, into the San Francisco bay and out into the ocean we could have a solar powered 24 x 7 x 365 day water wheel trash interceptor operating and ensuring that our waterways are healthy.

What do you think? Would you support investing in a solar powered water wheel trash interceptor for Redwood Creek?