I’m spending a week in La Jolla, CA, USA, about 15ft above sea level and I’m wondering where the sewage goes? There’s no room between here and the sea for a treatment plant. There’s pretty big apartment complexes and hotels that would need enormous septic tanks. How does it work?

  • @[email protected]
    23•1 year ago

    As a sewing machine operator I was quite confused with your question for longer than I care to admit.

          • jimmydoreisalefty
            5•1 year ago

            Edit: Nevermind, does not show up as part of the Metro JPA. "The JPA member agencies are the cities of Chula Vista, Coronado, Del Mar, El Cajon, Imperial Beach, La Mesa, National City and Poway; the Lemon Grove Sanitation District; the Padre Dam Municipal and Otay Water Districts; and the County of San Diego (on behalf of the Winter Gardens Sewer Maintenance District, and the Alpine, Lakeside and Spring Valley Sanitation Districts).

            Col history of the wastewater problems in the area, If you read more they moved to Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. I assumed that La Jolla continued to send wastewater like the other cities did with pumps and pipelines. The post above has a map of the lines.

            “Responding to a growing tourism industry in the 1920s, the City began installing settling tanks along the coast to capture solids in the raw sewage while allowing the liquid to flow into the ocean. Settling tanks were installed in Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, La Jolla and Downtown. Much of the sewage, however, continued to be discharged into San Diego Bay without any treatment.”

            “In 1975, the City completed upgrades at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant (shown at right, current), expanding capacity to 132 million gallons of sewage per day. By that time, the plant had already reached its maximum capacity of 88 million gallons per day. The upgrades were completed with federal funding secured by the City a few years before. The capacity of the plant was expanded again in 1982, to 176 million gallons per day, and once more in 1987, to 240 million gallons per day. Today, the plant has the capacity to treat up to 240 million gallons of sewage per day to advanced primary levels, and is receiving an average of 175 million gallons per day.”

            Source from 07 January 2007: https://www.metrojpa.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=737 **

            • jimmydoreisalefty
              6•1 year ago

              Found more info on a project called Pipeline Rehabilitation Y-1.

              "Project Background

              The City of San Diego has more 3,000 miles of wastewater pipelines that help dispose of sewage for more than 2 million residents of San Diego County. Some pipelines are more than 100 years old, are deteriorating, and are in need of replacement, repair and upgrades. To avoid future service disruptions, such as sewer main stoppages and spills, the aging pipelines are replaced or rehabilitated. The new pipelines will bring the existing sewer mains up to modern standards, accommodate community growth and reduce maintenance requirements. Project Overview

              The project is located in Council District 1 within the La Jolla and University City community areas. The project will rehabilitate 41,846 linear feet (7.93 miles) of existing 8-inch and 10-inch sewer mains within the City’s right of way. The project will also:

              Connect laterals to the rehabilitated mains;
Install cleanouts;
Rehabilitate or replace manholes;
Conduct spot repairs to existing sewer mains, which will require some excavation;
Install or replace curb ramp where required;
Resurface streets impacted streets;
And restore disturbed areas to their original condition."

              https://www.sandiego.gov/cip/projectinfo/featuredprojects/pipelinerehaby1

              Random cool thing I found was that Point La Jolla has a seasonal closure due to sea lion pupping season, which takes place between May and October. https://www.sandiego.gov/park-and-recreation/point-lajolla**___**

  • @haulyard
    5•1 year ago

    Don’t have the link handy, but there’s a video out there about Chicagos approach to this and it’s absolutely nuts. The amount of infrastructure they’ve put in place, and sewage still ends up in the lake.

  • Ильдар
    4•1 year ago

    In most seaside towns, sewage is taken directly to the sea, through a long pipe

  • @afraid_of_zombies
    4•1 year ago

    The answer is that it is there you just don’t see it. Like for example NYC has Tallman Island and an underground one on the West Side. It also depends on what exactly are you dealing with. For ground water (that little stream you might see by the beach) there might be a tiny treatment plant that dumps what is processed into the ocean. Bradley Beach NJ has one of those.

    As others have pointed out pumps are a thing. In some situations you can do a degree of preprocessing before it hits the mainlines.

  • Chrüsimüsi
    3•1 year ago

    I’m no expert but I wonder if where there’s limited space for traditional sewage treatment plants, wastewater is just transported through a network of sewer lines to centralized treatment facilities? 🤔

    This would allow the treatment plants to be located further inland.

    Alternaively I guess they could employ on-site treatment technologies that can be incorporated into the building’s infrastructure 🤔

    But like I said I ain’t no expert and just speculating 😅

  • @Hikermick
    1•1 year ago

    My dad worked in waste water treatment. One of the places I remember visiting him was a pumping station. It was a noisy featureless building full of pumps that would move sewage along when gravity couldn’t do the job. Right now I live on a street where I’m the last house connected to the sewer. Neighbors past me have their own sceptic tanks because there is stone underground preventing pipes with the correct pitch from being installed and the cost of building and maintaining a pumping station for eleven homes is cost prohibitive.