Sewage,” this report on wastewater treatment and its novel uses in Santee, California, must have enticed LAM readers to dive in. They were rewarded with a detailed story of one small town’s clever use of water infrastructure, accompanied by illustrations of the artificial lakes and greenbelt made possible by the use of treated wastewater.
Written by Wesley Marx, a journalist and author of The Frail Ocean, the report unpacked Santee’s problem to dwell on the drought-stricken West, foundationally reliant on the expensive importation of water from the Colorado River. Santee was at a crossroads when growing wastewater volumes, a costly regional water infrastructure proposal, and new discharge requirements forced it to innovate. The idea was that by combining the new facilities with inexpensive horizontal gravel filtration, the process would produce water…
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Landscape Architecture (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2024