Project
Materials Recovery Facility San Francisco
Custom stormwater treatment for a large municipal materials recovery facility
This recyling facility in San Francisco is a 185,000 square foot site that handles approximately 750 tons of mixed recyclable materials each day, making it one of the largest waste paper exporters on the West Coast. Due to the facility’s heavy traffic and accumulation of debris, stormwater runoff presented significant water quality challenges, including elevated levels of total suspended solids (TSS), oil and grease, heavy metals, and chemical oxygen demand (COD).
To address these issues, Clear Water Services partnered with Cardno Engineering to design, permit, and install a stormwater treatment system that meets Level 2 status requirements under California’s Industrial General Permit (IGP). Clear Water began by conducting water quality characterization and deploying a temporary system to demonstrate treatment effectiveness. Based on the results, a fully automated 600gpm Chemically Enhanced Sand Filtration (CESF) system was implemented. Automated pH adjustment within the system creates ideal source water for metal precipitation and flocculation.
The installed system substantially reduces TSS, trace metals, oil and grease, and COD contaminants in stormwater runoff. In 7 years of operation, it has successfully treated and discharged nearly 10 million gallons of clean water to San Francisco Bay.
Gallons treatedThe CS-20 control system is a modular, turnkey solution for automated water treatment operations housed in a 20’ CONEX box.
The CS-20 contains PLC-based controls, pump motor contactors and/or VFDs, chemical dosing systems for flocculants and pH, as well as water quality monitoring components and fail-safe valving to ensure compliance. This system houses multiple chemical storage tanks with containment to accommodate large volumes or several types of treatment chemistry in a climate-controlled environment.
Features Include:
