Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Alameda County Water District tour promotes ‘Imagine a Day Without Water’ campaign

On December 30, 1913, Washington Township residents voted 883 to 18 to create the first water district under the State’s County Water District Act, the Alameda County Water District (ACWD). The once abundant local water resources in creeks and aquifers were drying up as a result of increased farming and population growth. Making the situation worse, private firms were transporting water away from the area to Oakland and even San Francisco. As a result, the dangerously low water table emptied wells, seriously affecting agricultural production vital to the local economy.

In the twenty-first century, water continues to be an important concern as the population continues to grow, especially in light of the tech boom that draws more and more residents daily to the Bay Area. Today, the ACWD Fremont facility processes around 26 million gallons a day and sends it through 900 miles of pipe. A tour on September 24 acknowledged the nationwide Imagine A Day Without Water campaign, a project of the Value of Water Coalition designed to raise awareness about the crucial need for investment in water-related infrastructure.

Drought, flooding, pollution and climate change all stress the system, but the AWCD is addressing the problems today, while planning for the future, and the tour was an opportunity for the public to find out what just what the AWCD does, what it plans, and what support it needs to continue doing its job.

Visitors to the Imagine a Day without Water tour, led by ACWD Community Affairs Specialist Sharene Gonzales, get to see behind the scenes at the modern low profile facility where technicians monitor filtration and other treatment processes that bring clean safe drinking water to homes and business in the tri-city area. Tucked behind tall trees on Mission Blvd and set upon a lower flank of Mission peak, the unassuming architecture, according to Gonzales, “was designed specifically to blend into the surrounding neighborhood.”

Water received from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta runs through a series of settling pools and a mineral-based filtration system that pulls organic and inorganic solids from the water and removes microorganisms. It is no overstatement to say that the single largest threat to human health through the centuries has been water-borne bacteria and other microscopic creatures that cause illness and disease. Today, every four hours, ACWD technicians pull samples and verify that that the physical and chemical processes designed to protect us are working properly. The tour takes visitors to the facility through areas where they will see chemical holding tanks, pumping equipment, filtration equipment and lab facilities—in short the science and the technology of safe drinking water.

The facility is remarkably “green,” as well. A principle component in the process of removing solids from the water is ozone, oxygen that is treated electrically to form oxygen molecules with single extra oxygen atom loosely attached. The extra oxygen is easily pulled from the oxygen gas molecule to form compounds with many of the solid contaminants, which then can be more easily filtered out. Normally, the electricity involved in the ozone-creating process would come at a high energy cost, but the generators powering the devices derive their power from solar panels.

The huge four stage filters use different size grades of of minerals, ranging from an anthracite gravel to a fine quartz sand. When the filters begin to reach their capacity, they are back-flushed. The sediment rich effluent is routed into into a large press the size of a rail car where water pressure forces the mixture between large waffle-iron like panels. The sediments are trapped and squeezed, turning them into harmless sheets that are broken up and safely disposed of in local landfill. Efficiency is a key element in the design of the system; all water used in the process of back-flushing and hydraulic squeezing is itself reprocessed and sent into the general water supply, almost completely eliminating any water waste


Understandably, the crew at the AWCD is justifiably proud of their facility. They perform an important service with expertise and efficiency. Visitors to the center on the Imagine a Day Without Water tour were given a warm welcome and left with a heightened sense of the importance of the job AWCD does and the need to support its efforts to maintain our community’s life-giving infrastructure.

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