The Water Reclamation Facility treats wastewater from the City of San Angelo to remove pollutants and to produce an environmentally safe water that meets state permit requirements.

All of the reclaimed water is utilized for irrigation. The water is either used to irrigate the City's farm or provided to the Tom Green County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1 for irrigation for its members. Below are the operations managed by the Water Reclamation.

Wastewater treatment

The wastewater treatment plant is a conventional activated sludge treatment plant that treats an average of 9 million to 10 million gallons per day. The plant uses three anaerobic digesters for sludge stabilization. The treatment process consists of six steps:     

  1. Lift station: All of San Angelo's wastewater flows into a wet well located at the wastewater treatment plant. The wet well contains large pumps that pump all the wastewater to the head works of the plant.
  2. Mechanical bar screens: There are two mechanical bar screens located at the beginning of the head works. These bar screens are set on times to operate every 15 minutes. The bar screens have square tubing spaced approximately 1 inch apart. Any large rags or debris  is stopped by these bar screens. The bar screens have large mechanical rakes that clean  the debris off the bars and deposits them into a dumpster for disposal in the landfill.
  3. Grit removal: There is a grit removal system after the wastewater goes through the bar screens. Here sand, gravel, etc. are removed from the system and taken to the landfill for disposal.
  4. Primary  clarifiers: There are four primary clarifiers that slow the flow of the water to allow fine particles to settle out. The sludge that settles to the bottom of the clarifiers is pumped to the digesters for stabilization. The effluent from the primary clarifiers flows into aeration basins for further treatment.
  5. Aeration basins: There are two aeration basins. Each basin contains more than 3,000 ceramic fine bubble diffusers. The diffusers act just like an air stone in a fish tank. Air flows  through the diffusers to provide oxygen for the aerobic bacteria in the aeration basins. The aerobic bacteria thrive in the presence of oxygen and feed on the organic matter in the water, thus removing pollutants in the water.
  6. Final clarifiers: There are four final clarifiers that slow the flow of the water to  allow the sludge from the aeration basins to settle out. The sludge settles to the bottom of the final clarifiers, where most of it is recirculated to the aeration basins to maintain an adequate level of aerobic bacteria. The cleaned wastewater flows into a wet well for pumping to the holding reservoirs. The water from the reservoirs is either pumped to the Tom Green County Water Control and Improvement District in Veribest for irrigation or is irrigated at the City's farm.      

City Farm

City Farm is located adjacent to the Water Reclamation Facility. It consists of approximately 2,463 acres that are leased for agricultural production.
       
The farm contains two effluent holding reservoirs that have the capacity to hold approximately 1 billion gallons of reclaimed water. An irrigation pump station is located adjacent to the reservoirs. The station pumps the water to either the Tom Green County Water Control and Improvement District's canals or to the farm's distribution system. All of the reclaimed water is utilized by irrigation.