When you flush the toilet, do you think about what happens to that waste water? I always did because my dad spent 20 years working here. He supervised three expansions and showed me how interesting the process can be. While 'normal' families would stop at the town limit sign of different cities on vacation, we'd seek out and tour the water plants.
This is where the waste water of Manteca and Lathrop goes to get cleaned and recycled, around 6.5 million gallons of it a day. The process creates around 25 tons of solid waste every month, which goes to the landfill or gets spread over ag land. This place used to be quite 'pungent' to put it politely, but lots of 'stink-cutting' measures were put in place when Big league dreams went in downwind, and now there is not really a noticeable odor.
Other fun facts:
It is not uncommon to find Jewelry, coins or children's toys in the large items screen here.
UV light is now used to clean water, not unlike some modern hiker's water filters, but on a much larger scale, of course.
Treated water is discharged into the San Joaquin River, because of this, the water leaving this plant is more highly regulated than your drinking water.
The 'related web site' below contains a link to a simple flow chart describing how this plant works.
Cache is a small container, of standard urban hide, should be pretty straightforward a few staff members know of the hide, but not all of them, so try and be stealthy. No need to pass any fences or gates. FTF gets a wheat penny.
