Tag Archives: san francisco

San Francisco Finds a New Landfill?

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by current events, waste • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

By 2015, San Francisco officials are hoping to send waste to a landfill in Yuba County, near the town of Wheatland, CA.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the garbage will be taken by truck to Oakland, loaded onto trains, and shipped 130 miles to a 236-acre landfill.

The city is currently under contract to ship garbage to the Altamont Landfill in Livermore.

The proposed landfill in Yuba County is owned by Recology (formerly Norcal Waste Systems) and currently receives about 750 tons of trash each day. It is expected that San Francisco would send more than 1000 additional tons of trash to the landfill each day.

Details of the plan are still being negotiated, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will have to approve any final proposal.

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On a side note, Recology has a blog with lots of info about waste and recycling in the Bay Area. I’ve just started reading through some of the archives.

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San Francisco’s Smart Water Meters

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by current events, water • Tags: , , , , , , , ,
                                                                                          water supply leak, Free Foto.com

San Francisco began to roll out its new ‘smart’ water meters to city residences this month. The new devices can accurately track water usage in real-time and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) plans to make personal water use data available to customers online. Other benefits include the streamlining of operations- meters communicate wirelessly, eliminating the need for house-to-house readings- and the early detection of system leaks and unusual usage surges.

The SFPUC will replace over 175,000 meters beginning with 5,000 this spring/summer,with an estimated install completion for the full number by 2012. The expectation is that the new meters will be able to assist individual and system-wide conservation efforts, increase response time for problems, and allow for a more accurate and refined fee structure.

California, as a drought-prone state, can stand to benefit greatly from increased water use data collection. As it stands today, water use is not uniformly tracked in all homes and businesses, nor is there any correlation between regional water scarcity and water service rates. While agriculture, industry and conveyance also play leading roles in the general water picture in the state, having accurate home and commercial usage data is a step forward, and can only be a benefit in creating sound management policies for this precious and scarce resource.

Anna’s Links – Smart Meters for Energy and Water

by energy, links, water • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

photo credit: freefoto.com

Many of you may have heard about the goings-on around the widespread installation of smart energy meters in California (after all, there have been lawsuits, legislative hearings, and mandated independent meter testing, just for the Pacific Gas and Electric meter installations).

So why go through all that to install smart energy meters? Because they hold huge promise for helping consumers reduce their energy use and for adding flexibility and reliability to how the grid is managed.

What you may not have heard as much about is that smart water meters are also being installed – more than half of California water utilities have some smart meters in their districts (via the New York Times). Ideally, smart water meters would provide real-time (or near real-time) feedback on water use to both the water utility and the consumer.

Also, Oracle has apparently developed an interest in smart water meters as a potential future market, as they already sell software systems to water (and power) utilities (via GreenTechmedia).