QUEST Community Science Blog

Unless our sewage happens to end up in the Bay and in the headlines, most of us probably never give a second thought to where our wastewater is headed each time we run the tap or flush the toilet.

To learn more about the travels of sewage, I took a tour of the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District treatment plant led by Plant Manager Matt Pierce. The plant has been in operation for about 50 years and serves over 30,000 residents in north San Rafael.

After leaving sinks and showers throughout the District, wastewater travels through a network of pipes and pump stations. Once the sewage arrives at Las Gallinas, it passes through an inlet screen and a grit chamber, which together remove much of the dense, inorganic material-”like diamond rings,” Matt jokes.

A lot of what happens at the plant is not that different from what happens in your compost pile: “It’s basically bacteria at work,” Matt points out. (The much bigger challenge for sanitation districts these days are all the unnatural things we’re putting down the drain: household chemicals, personal care products, pharmaceuticals.)

From the grit chamber the sewage heads into a series of clarifiers, where gravity causes the organic solids to settle out. The biosolids pass through a thickener and then an anaerobic digester-the most, ahem, aromatic stop on our tour. After further thickening in storage ponds, the sludge is injected into a disposal field.

Meanwhile, the liquid from the clarifiers travels through two biofilters, where rotating arms spray the water over rock beds. The organic matter in the wastewater is a feast for microbial slime living on the rocks. In the nitrification tower, more microorganisms break down the ammonia in the water. In the final stages of treatment, the wastewater is chlorinated to kill any remaining bacteria, then dechlorinated since the chlorine is toxic to many aquatic species. Finally, the treated water is sprayed onto District fields or discharged into Miller Creek where it flows to San Pablo Bay.

The District has done a lot to minimize the environmental impacts of its operations. The plant is powered by a field of solar panels. The methane released in the sludge treatment process is captured and used to generate power and heat the digester. Some of the treated wastewater supports acres of fresh and saltwater wetlands-in fact the District’s land is a favorite local gem for walkers and birders. And in a partnership with the Marin Municipal Water District, more than a million gallons of treated wastewater are recycled daily for landscape irrigation and other projects.

There are plans to make even fuller use of the reclaimed water. The Bay Institute-in partnership with the Sonoma County Water Agency, Las Gallinas, and three other North Bay sanitation agencies-has developed a plan to use recycled water for wetland and creek restoration and for agricultural irrigation. Legislation sponsored by Congressman Mike Thompson to establish the program passed the House late last year; Senator Dianne Feinstein has introduced similar legislation that we are hopeful will pass this year.

With California’s growing demands for water, such creative means to conserve and recycle are critical to helping prevent this precious resource from just going “down the drain.”


Ann Dickinson is Communications Manager for The Bay Institute (www.bay.org), a nonprofit research, education, and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and restoring San Francisco Bay and its watershed, “from the Sierra to the sea.”

A “penguin suit” doesn’t just refer to a tuxedo anymore.

Why does Pierre, the Academy’s 25-year-old penguin
need a wetsuit?Thanks to an innovative treatment at the California Academy of Sciences. Pierre, the Academy’s 25-year-old penguin was recently fitted with a wetsuit! Pierre’s feathers were thinning and not growing back. Because penguins rely on their feathers for warmth, Pierre was often shivering and uncomfortable without the protection of his feathers. When medical tests concluded there was no medical reason for the feather loss and more conventional treatments proved unsuccessful, senior aquatic biologist & penguin handler, Pam Schaller came up with a more creative approach to keep Pierre warm.

Pam was very familiar with the warmth of wetsuits. She then mused why couldn’t a wetsuit be designed for a penguin? She approached Academy veterinarian, Freeland Dunker with her left field idea. At first, he was dubious but after talking with Pam, he agreed it was worth a try as long as the wetsuit was fitted to insure it did more good than harm. In other words, as long as the wetsuit was fitted not to impede movement or cause rashes, it was worth a shot. Pam knew the best person to design a custom wetsuit would be Celeste Argel, the Early Childhood Specialist at the Academy, who is an excellent and creative seamstress. Celeste was asked to collaborate with Pam to develop and fit a wetsuit just Pierre’s size.

But how do you go about designing a penguin wetsuit? The answer seems to be trial and error. Celeste sat down with me and went over the details about the unusual experience. The process from idea to creation required a great deal of patience and re-fitting.

Celeste, Pam and Pierre met several times in order to customize dimensions. The first fitting consisted of Pam restraining Pierre in order for Celeste to take measurements. From the start, Celeste marveled at the strength of Pierre. “From far away,” she commented, “penguins just look so cute and cuddly but being up close gave me an appreciation for just how strong penguins really are.” With measurements in hand, Celeste drafted up a pattern for the wetsuit and created the first prototype from white cotton bed linens.

On the second fitting, Celeste was faced with a new challenge - getting Pierre’s flippers through the armhole. Pam wanted to keep the armholes as small as possible to maximize warmth. In doing so, Pierre’s flippers had to be bent at the joint and folded in upon themselves in order to thread them though the armholes. While Pam again restrained Pierre, Celeste applied pressure at the joint to fold his wings. “It was amazing and scary to fold up Pierre’s flipper. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t hurting him but to fold his flipper required a bit of pressure at the joint,” Celeste related. With the prototype on, Celeste was able to use a marker and note where the suit had to be taken in or taken out to make Pierre more comfortable. And then again, it was back to the drawing board.

A few more fittings took place to streamline the suit and to ensure that Pierre’s flippers had full mobility. Then Velcro was added to the back of the suit. Pierre was let loose in the penguin enclosure to see how he moved. Both Celeste and Pam sat down to watch his movements and observed where the fabric was bunching. Pierre seemed to be adjusting to his suit quite well but the other penguins, new to a mostly white Pierre, started poking and prodding to investigate the newly adorned bird. Because of the interest from the other birds, the session in the suit only lasted a few minutes. Celeste changed the color of the prototype to a dark brown to see if the other penguins would respond differently and they did. They accepted Pierre with a dark physique. More sessions in the new prototype followed and when Pierre jumped into the water and swam around with the suit on, Celeste and Pam knew it was time for the neoprene fitting.

Celeste conducted research to see how neoprene would act differently than cotton. From her research, she concluded that the whole suit would have to be taken in at least an inch because of the give of the material. However, Celeste didn’t have a machine to sew neoprene effectively so Pam asked Oceanic Worldwide, who supplied wetsuits to the human staff at the Academy, to manufacture a neoprene suit. Pam delivered the working prototype and the patterns to Oceanic who agreed to donate their time and materials. “We were really excited to do it,” said Teo Tertel, company marketing specialist. “We heard most of these penguins only live to 20, and our little buddy there was already 25. Anything we could do to help them, we were all for it.”

When the suit from Worldwide was delivered, it still wasn’t quite ready. The neoprene suit fit differently than expected and had to be re-fitted all over again. However neoprene can be glued instead of sewn so it was a matter of trying the suit on Pierre, marking where it didn’t fit snugly and adjusting. “I would walk behind him and look at where there were any gaps, and cut and refit and cut and refit until it looked like it was extremely streamlined,” Pam remarked on the final alterations. There were hiccups with a penguin being in a wetsuit for the first time and being curious about the Velcro and tabs. So nothing was left unaltered for Pierre’s comfort and mobility.

With all the alterations finally done, a final set of patterns was delivered to Oceanic Worldwide and they again donated their time to manufacture the final wetsuit for Pierre. All the hard work paid off for all involved when Pierre became warm again. It was a huge bonus when he also started to gain weight and his feathers began to grow back. The goal of designing the wetsuit for Pierre was to keep him comfortable and warm and the custom suit worked much better than expected. Having Pierre happy and healthy without the further need of the wetsuit was a perfect outcome for a very unusual treatment.

Cat Aboudara is the Special Projects Manager at California Academy of Sciences and works in the public programs division. The Academy is a wonderful fit for her because of her curiosity about the natural world and her experience in working with native California wildlife.

What does our use of bottled water say about us? View our 2-minute TV short “Future History: Plastic Water Bottles” to take a look from the perspective of an anthropologist from the distant future, and the take our poll below:

Josh Rosen is Series Producer for QUEST on KQED Television.

This year the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) will celebrate its 35th anniversary. Under the ESA over 1,350 species are listed in the United States as threatened or endangered, including over 300 in California. This includes a number of “celebrities” of the conservation world such as the humpback whale and California condor, but also dozens of much more low profile species. Around our offices, we have a particular soft spot for the California freshwater shrimp (Syncaris pacifica), the impetus for our Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed (STRAW) Project).

The California freshwater shrimp is 10-legged crustacean in the family Atyidae.

Found only in a handful of Bay Area creeks, the shrimp is a detritus feeder that prefers glides (calm, slow-flowing sections of streams) with undercut banks, exposed roots, and overhanging vegetation. Adult females produce relatively few eggs-about 50-120-that stick to the mother’s pleopods during winter incubation. The young measure about 6 millimeters and are released in late spring or early summer. They grow rapidly, reaching up to 2.5 inches as adults and ranging in color from translucent to rusty red.

The species’ closest cousin, the Pasadena freshwater shrimp (Syncaris pasadenae), went extinct in the 1930s, leaving the California freshwater shrimp as the only representative of its genus. The California freshwater shrimp was listed under the ESA in 1988. Recently the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service issued its 5-year review of the shrimp’s status. The report concludes that the species is not ready for delisting, as it still faces many of the same threats as 20 years ago: loss of habit due to agricultural activities and development, water pollution, water diversions-even the construction of recreational summer dams for swimming and fishing.

But there is also good news in the report. At the time it was listed, the shrimp was known from 17 streams; it now has been found in 23. In one of these, the number of shrimp surveyed increased from 1,878 in 1991 to 4,407 in 2000. Many of the streams in which the shrimp is found have watershed management plans in place. And the report also acknowledged the ongoing work of STRAW to restore more than 50,000 linear feet of stream bank, creating new habitat for the shrimp-not to mention other native species.

When Congress passed and Richard Nixon signed the ESA in 1973, a little freshwater shrimp was not at the forefront of their minds. But there is an inspiring sense of democracy in the ESA as written: It empowers citizens to petition or sue the government to protect species. And it doesn’t discriminate between the big, showy species and the small and obscure-but equally unique and imperiled-ones.

According to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, since 1973 the ESA has protected 99% of listed species from extinction. National Endangered Species Day is coming up May 16. Find out about ways to help celebrate.

Ann Dickinson is Communications Manager for The Bay Institute (www.bay.org), a nonprofit research, education, and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and restoring San Francisco Bay and its watershed, “from the Sierra to the sea.”

Polluting Makes Vatican List of Grave Social Sins

Over the course of a week of working with concrete,
this landscaping job produced only one bucket
of wastewater. Credit: Ann Hutcheson-WilcoxAs a lifelong Catholic and former Catholic priest, I often find myself wishing that the Church would stick to what it knows best: the Sacraments. I wish the Pope would declare a 10-year moratorium on anyone with any authority in the Church saying anything at all about sexuality.

But sometimes the Vatican gets it right.

Polluting is a now a recognized social sin, along with another act that tends to wreck havoc on the environment, that is, contributing to the growing social and economic divide between rich and poor. The rich contribute inordinately to pollution and the poor suffer inordinately from it.

The Church has installed photovoltaics (PV) on the roofs of some Vatican buildings, and has recognized the scientific consensus that humans contribute to global warming. One of my teachers in the Divinity program at Notre Dame, Fr. Tim O’Meara, said that the Church responds quite slowly to crisis and change. “It spends twenty-five years denying the problem, twenty-five years quietly addressing it, and twenty-five years claiming that this is the way we’ve always done things.” So by historical standards, the Church is moving with lightning speed.

One of my coworkers at Home Energy told me that she viewed the new sin as another tool in the environmental education toolbox. Through her experience as an environmental organizer, policy analyst, and fundraiser, she has learned that individuals are motivated to take action on behalf of the environment due to personal belief or their own unique life experience. While working with contractors on her own home, she has often found it challenging to explain to people in the trades why she feels that it is her responsibility to go beyond business as usual. Last week’s announcement that “la contaminación ahora es un pecado” (pollution is now a sin) came just at the right time. The contractors she was working with to rebuild a retaining wall made primarily of reused concrete and found objects figured out how to avoid dumping any wastewater into her gutter, which empties directly into the local creek, a home for native rainbow trout. If pollution were not yet a sin, they may not have been as willing to consider the alternatives. Over the course of a week of working with concrete, they produced only one bucket of wastewater.

The new sins do present a challenge to the imagination of poets like myself. In Dante’s Divine Comedy there is no place in hell for unrepentant polluters. Now that the Vatican has named pollution a serious social sin, we may have to invent a punishment, and a metaphorical place in hell for polluters. Let’s see-tyrants, assassins, and warmongers swim in a river of boiling blood, and the wrathful tear each other to pieces with their teeth-maybe polluters will have to tread water in that twice-Texas-sized trash dump floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for all eternity, or at least until we decide how to clean it up.

Jim Gunshinan is Managing Editor of Home Energy Magazine. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from University of Notre Dame.

Home designers and constructors are realizing that all houses are organic.

The California Energy Commission asked the Davis Energy Group in Sacramento to evaluate new home construction in California a few years ago. The following excerpt from Home Energy Magazine tells you what they found.
The increasing architectural complexity of new homes requires greater vigilance on the part of framers, insulators, and drywall contractors to create a single thermal/pressure boundary between conditioned and unconditioned spaces. The more complex the design of the home, the more coordination is needed among the various members of the design team. Yet, mechanical contractors are rarely consulted regarding the integration of ducts and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) equipment into the house design. Contractors often lack both the knowledge and the time to implement house-as-a-system construction concepts. In addition, there is not an adequate infrastructure in place to provide contractors and installers with necessary training and certification.
House-as-a-system, or whole-house design, requires an integrated approach to water management. When I visited Japan, I went inside elegant buildings that were centuries old and made almost entirely of wood. Japan has a prolonged wet season, much like the northern coast of California. Because of this, the roofs of the Japanese houses I saw were designed to move moisture away from the structure. Inside, the buildings were well ventilated with the wood framing members exposed. Wood absorbs water during the wet season and dries during the dry season, allowing these healthy buildings to breathe in and out like other organisms.
In previous centuries, building homes was a craft learned primarily through apprenticeship with a master builder who knew how to create a whole house that worked in the wet, dry, humid, hot, cold, and/or windy climate in which it was built. Today, however, the home building industry is fractured, with designers and general contractors and several trades doing their parts and not always talking to each other. In order to build a house that works, all the players need to know how what they do individually in a house effects what everyone else is doing as well. Plumbers have to respect air and moisture barriers, designers have to understand moisture dynamics, and HVAC contractors have to understand the pressure dynamics of the whole house; otherwise furnaces will backdraft, mold will form in walls, homes will have poor indoor air quality, they will cost a fortune to operate, be very uncomfortable, and fall down after a few years.
In order to combat global warming and provide affordable housing to everyone who needs it, houses must be designed, built, and retrofitted to be energy efficient, healthy to live in, affordable, and made to last forever (or at least for a hundred years). Interested in being a part of the solution to global warming? Get a green collar job. In particular, I would recommend a career in home design and construction to anyone with the time and energy to get the right kind of education, training, and experience. There is plenty of work out there and that’s not changing anytime soon. Home Energy publishes a training guide for people in North America interested in learning the concepts and tools of whole building design and construction. For the latest list, go to http://www.homeenergy.org/contrainingguide/index.php.

Jim Gunshinan is Managing Editor of Home Energy Magazine. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from University of Notre Dame.

latitude: 37.8783, longitude: -122.287