San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility
wastewater treatment plant in San Jose, California; largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the western United States
The San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility (abbreviated RWF; officially the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant) is a wastewater treatment plant located in the Alviso neighborhood of San Jose, California. The facility treats 110 million U.S. gallons (420 megaliters) of wastewater per day, with a capacity of up to 167 million U.S. gal/d (630 ML/d), making it the largest tertiary treatment plant in the western United States. It serves 1.5 million residents and over 17,000 business facilities in eight cities. The 2,600-acre (1,100 ha) site is operated by the San Jose Environmental Services Department and jointly owned by the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara. It began operations in 1956 to address severe water pollution issues and played a key role in San Jose's aggressive annexation program during the 1950s and 1960s.
Location
The site sits on more than 2,600 acres (1,100 ha) on the southern end of the San Francisco Bay, adjacent to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. It consists of a 175-acre (71 ha) processing area, a 750-acre (300 ha) sludge-drying area, a 850-acre (340 ha) former salt evaporation pond, and open buffer space. About 200 acres (81 ha) is set aside for the Western burrowing owl, a California species of special concern. The plant's outfall channel is Artesian Slough, which flows into the San Francisco Bay via Coyote Creek.
History
In the 1880s, San Jose built a simple sewage disposal system that discharged untreated wastewater directly into the San Francisco Bay.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “San José–Santa Clara Regional Wastewater Facility” as wastewater treatment plant in San Jose, California; largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the western United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as wastewater treatment plant in San Jose, California; largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the western United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q108055606. Authority coordinates are 37.431, -121.952. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956.
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