You create dozens of gallons of wastewater when you wash, shower, and flush. This water is treated through biological and environmentally friendly processes before being released into the bay. See how the process works. 

1. Water from your sink, shower, clothes washer and toilet drain into Hayward's sanitary sewer system. The sewer system is maintained by City crews who continuously clean out pipes to keep the wastewater flowing downhill towards the Treatment Facility.

2. At the Treatment Facility, solids that float or sink are separated out of the wastewater in the primary clarifier tanks.

3. Beneficial bacteria then treat the wastewater by eating the suspended waste in the secondary clarified tanks.

4. The remaining wastewater is disinfected with chlorine to make sure that harmful bacteria are killed, such as E. coli. The chlorine breaks down over time.

5. Clean, fish-friendly water is pumped into the East Bay Dischargers Authority’s “super sewer” line and is released deep in the water of San Francisco Bay.

Energy Production: The solids that are separated out of the wastewater are used to make biogas that fuels a co-generation engine that provides power used to run the treatment facility. In addition, the treatment facility has a 1.6 MW solar facility that together with the cogeneration system provides more power than the facility needs with excess energy exported to the grid for use at other City facilities. Since 2015, the City of Hayward has consistently ranked in the top 30 on EPA’s Green Power Partnership On-Site Generation list.

Call 510.293.5395 or email diane.vargas@hayward-ca.gov to schedule a tour of our award-winning Wastewater Treatment Facility.

Watch Meryl Abramson, Lead Wastewater Treatment Operator with the City of Hayward Water Pollution Control Facility, talk about her job and what it takes to work in the industry.