Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment Facility Wins Award

From the City of Santa Cruz:

Posted 2/13/2020

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — The City of Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment Facility has been awarded 2020 Collection System of the Year (Small) from the California Wastewater Environment Association-Monterey Bay Section. The award was presented at the section’s 66th Annual Awards Banquet on Feb. 7.

The honor recognizes outstanding maintenance programs, regulatory compliance, and safety and training procedures for wastewater and storm water collection systems with less than 250 miles of pipe. These systems include sanitary sewers, storm drains, pump stations, pipes, manholes and catch basins.

The work of the award-winning collection team ensures public health and safety by preventing and/or responding to sewage overflows and blockages. In maintaining the wastewater and storm water collection system, the City crew annually cleans about 160 miles of pipeline and replaces up to 5,000 feet of old pipe. They constantly service 29 pump stations and tens of thousands of residential and business sewer laterals.

The collection team also routinely inspects and cleans the City’s 67 miles of storm drains and 1640 catch basins with extra efforts focused on the three lowest lying areas of downtown, Beach Flats and Lower Ocean to prevent flooding during winter storms. They inspect and repair five storm pumping facilities and gravity outlets including river flood control slide gates and discharge valves.

The collection team’s skilled tasks include working in confined spaces, setting up excavation sites that require shoring, completing underground repairs and construction, storm line hydro flushing, and closed-circuit TV inspection of the collection system to determine capital improvement and maintenance needs. The team is on-call with 24-hour emergency response.

This award declares the City of Santa Cruz Wastewater System Collection Division as a contender for California Wastewater Environment Association’s best-in-state Collection System of the Year award — to be announced in April.

About the Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment Facility

The Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment Facility operates and maintains a regional wastewater treatment and disposal facility. Wastewater treatment and ocean outfall disposal are provided for the City of Santa Cruz and the Santa Cruz County Sanitation District (includes Live Oak, Capitola, Soquel and Aptos). Ocean outfall disposal is provided for the City of Scotts Valley. The facility has won many awards. More information including a video overview is available at: www.cityofsantacruz.com/wastewater.

This press release was produced by the City of Santa Cruz. The views expressed here are the author’s own.