Palo Alto, in almost all aspects, is leading the charge in environmentally-friendly orientated transformations, actively developing regulations and plans to improve the quality of our air and to raise awareness of our environmental footprint. First, in 2000, Palo Alto developed a Sustainability Policy, which outlined the goals for the environment such as, “greater conservancy, reduced pollution, increased efficiency, and protection of native vegetation, fish, wildlife habitats and other ecosystems” and the desire to reserve resources and the beauty of the town for further generations. As time progressed, a Climate Protection Plan was also created in 2007 with the plan to “present a comprehensive inventory of municipal and community-generated emissions, propose reduction targets, and propose practical steps to reach those targets” and then finally both ideas of sustainability and climate protection were combined in cumulative call to action through the 2016 Sustainability/Climate Action Plan.

It is clear that Palo Alto strives to take care of its city and the health of its citizens. One way of doing so is through the intricate processes of the wastewater treatment plant, located on Embarcadero. The wastewater treatment plant, though often under-appreciated due to its dealings with feces and the stench that the waste omits, is necessary in order to recycle and return water – that is free from infections and bacterias – back into larger water sources such as the San Francisco Bay and surrounding creeks. If we did not have the wastewater treatment plant, not only would the bay be filled with digested remnants of our week’s lunch, but the bacteria in the water would cause dead zones, in which there is not enough dissolved oxygen for fish or other organisms to survive, and/or other effects that could harm or destroy aquatic habitats and ecosystems.

Palo Alto, in order to ensure the sustainability and health of a resource like the bay, places strict regulations on the wastewater treatment plant so that the water goes through a more intensive and thorough disinfection process from that of other treatment plants in different cities. For all wastewater treatments, it is standard to have the primary treatment and typically the bar screening step, in which the solid wastes are removed from the water, and then to have a secondary treatment step which relies on biological processes to further remove suspended and dissolved solids. Either in an aeration tank, a trickling filter bed, or a sewage lagoon, secondary treatment entails using microorganisms to decompose the leftover solid wastes so pathogens are eliminated from the water. Though both steps are reliable in eliminating bacteria, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission places higher regulations on the recycling of our wastewater. In addition to primary and secondary treatment, Palo Alto’s wastewater is required to go through tertiary treatment in which ultraviolet light disinfection further cleans the water by damaging the DNA of any smaller remaining bacteria and preventing them from reproducing.

Despite the intricate processes of the wastewater treatment plant aligning with Palo Alto’s strict goal of protecting its ecosystems, there is one step that contradicts our values. A topic of controversy and discussion among Palo Alto citizens, the treatment plant’s incinerator is the final stop for solids that are removed from the wastewater. The incinerator burns the solids before a truck brings the pile of ashes to a landfill roughly 100 miles away to Kings County, California. Although in 1969, it was approved as an environmentally-friendly alternative to simply burying the waste in a landfill, today its old-fashioned function contrasts with Palo Alto’s new clean-air environmental innovations, like for example the recent “clean vehicles for all program”. With the incinerator releasing roughly 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year, its presence at the wastewater treatment plant is under attack from Palo Alto citizens, the Utilities Advisory Commission, and even past councilwoman Emily Renzen. As cited in the Palo Alto Weekly, Renzen said. “It’s the biggest dollars, the biggest energy spent, the biggest polluter”. The incinerator should be a reminder of the improvements that need to be done by Palo Alto, or any environmentally-conscious city, to change the impact of our utilizing and disposing of resources from degrading the environment to respecting it. As Palo Alto citizens, who are brilliantly full of new ideas and committed to the sustainability and protection of the environment, we must reflect on our methods, such as the using incinerator, and take initiative to realign our actions with our goals for the future.