| In 1989, the City of Santa Clara
completed the first significant recycled water transmission
and delivery system in the South Bay. The system utilized treated
water from the jointly owned San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution
Control Plant to irrigate the Santa Clara Golf & Tennis
Club and for other non-potable applications within the City
of Santa Clara. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality
Control Board granted Santa Clara this early permission to utilize
recycled water for many purposes. The uses included landscape
irrigation at the City's then new Santa Clara Golf & Tennis
Club and at a nearby City park, for street median landscaping,
dust control for construction projects, sewer cleaning and street
cleaning. The project was nationally recognized as the 1989
winner of the American City & County Award of Merit in the
water supply category. As the project was being completed, the
Santa Clara Valley began to experience several years of drought.
Santa Clara's recycled water project was the envy of the region,
allowing the City's golf course to stay green, and saving enough
potable water for 1,400 homes a year.
Santa Clara's initial municipal use of treated water from
the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant grew
regionally in the 1990s. The South Bay Water Recycling Program
was initiated to reduce the discharge of treated water flowing
from the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant
into San Francisco Bay. The plant operates under a discharge
limit of 120 million gallons a day during the summer to help
maintain the salt marsh habitat of the South Bay. The discharge
of the Plant's highly-treated water into the Bay was believed
to be endangering the salt marsh habitat of two endangered
species, converting the saltwater marsh to fresh water and
(brackish water) marsh. To help preserve this habitat, rather
than discharging the treated water into the Bay, the recycled
water system helps to divert this water to other uses, and
keeps the discharge under the established flow limit.
Currently, more than 100 miles of recycled water pipelines
are delivering recycled water for landscaping, playing fields,
golf course, cemeteries, industrial processing, dual-plumbing,
agriculture and other non-drinking water purposes. Program
participants and partners with Santa Clara include the cities
of San Jose and Milpitas, County Sanitation Districts 2 &
3, West Valley Sanitation District, Burbank and Sunol Sanitary
Districts, Cupertino Sanitary District, Santa Clara Valley
Water District, San Jose Water Company, and the Great Oaks
Water Company. In addition to Santa Clara's use of recycled
water at our golf course, local parks, and in some landscape
medians, businesses in Santa Clara utilizing recycled water
for non-potable uses include the San Francisco 49ers for their
practice fields, Sun Microsystems, Intel, California Paperboard,
Paramount's Great America, and many more. Recycled water is
available for non-potable uses by businesses, industries,
parks, and schools along pipeline routes in the area north
of Central Expressway and along Lafayette Street, and along
Saratoga Avenue in Santa Clara.
For more information call (408) 615-2000 or visit the South
Bay Water Recycling website.
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