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Two years ago, the Bay Area’s 40 publicly owned wastewater treatment agencies got some hard news. They had 10 years to upgrade their facilities to reduce pollutants entering the bay by 40%, at an estimated cost of $11 billion.
At a Thursday meeting of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, a pathway was initiated for certain projects to get a deadline extension, if they qualify and are moving as quickly as possible.
The 2034 deadline was established when the water board tightened the rules for issuing the permit required to discharge treated effluent into Bay Area waters. The move was in response to massive fish kills in 2022 and 2023 caused by consecutive algae blooms.
“What we learned in 2022 is that it spread throughout San Francisco Bay because of the nutrients,” said Eileen White, executive officer for the board. “It was like a buffet for the harmful algal blooms. The algae was eating it up.”
The bloom used nearly all the nitrogen available in the water, said Kevin Lunde, senior environmental scientist with the board. “It resulted in extremely low dissolved oxygen levels,” he said. “Tens of thousands of fish were killed.”
White said that the California Water Quality Control Board has a statewide policy that allows for compliance in 10 years.
“What we’re doing with this amendment is basically a little carve-out in the San Francisco Bay Water Board Basin Plan,” White said. The carve out includes a five-year extension for special projects in the nine counties covered by the Bay Area plan that provide enhanced environmental benefits.
Special projects include nature-based solutions, like building levees or wetlands adjacent to wastewater facilities that absorb the pollutants from treated effluent before it reaches the Bay while enhancing flood protection. Other qualifying projects include recycled water plants that send treated water to another user before discharging it, and innovative technologies that need additional time for pilot testing but have enhanced environmental benefits such as reduced energy and chemical usage or sludge production.
The extensions are also being provided to conventional biological treatment facilities and ones that already fall below the regulatory nutrient limit, as well as the Union Sanitary District in Union City, which was constructing a nutrient reduction project two years before the 2024 permit change.
“We are concerned that the board is allowing too many projects to qualify for its proposed expansion,” said Jon Rosenfield, science director with San Francisco Baykeeper, an environmental nonprofit that focuses on the San Francisco Bay watershed.
Rosenfield said in an email that science indicates the 10-year pollution limits are probably too weak to protect the Bay from more harmful algae blooms.
“Fifteen years is too long, the Bay needed better protections from wastewater pollution years ago,” he said. “The exceptions are too broad — all infrastructure upgrades to treatment plants are unique and challenging. The Board should be driving the urgency and innovation by requiring implementation of solutions within 10 years.”
Lunde said in Thursday’s meeting that some projects, like nature-based solutions and water recycling, might take more than 10 years to complete.
The Regional Water Quality Control Plant in Palo Alto reached a milestone in December with the construction of a pilot horizontal levee. That project began in 2018 and cost $7 million. The levee will only absorb 100,000 gallons of water out of the 20 million gallons of wastewater treated at the plant each day.
Treasure Island’s recycling facility won a prestigious award in 2025 at a cost of $165 million. In March, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Dennis Herrera said in a statement that San Francisco plans to invest $2.36 billion over the next 20 years to upgrade its wastewater collection and treatment system.
White said Thursday that the board would have the authority to grant the extra time for certain qualifying projects if the Basin Plan amendment is approved by the state Water Quality Control Board, the California Office of Administrative Law and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Even if they are doing one of these qualifying projects, it doesn’t grant them more time,” White said.” They must be moving as quickly as possible. If they still can’t get it done in 10 years, we can give them an extension without going the enforcement route.”
