Construction of Oro Loma's historic $34 million plant capacity restoration project remains on-time and on-budget. Below is a summary of major achievements so far.

Bar-screens: The first of the two new bar-screens that will replace the present single screen is in its final testing stage. The new channel has been built; the screen has been installed; and the electrical hook-ups are complete. The old screen should be out and the new one running by the end of May.
Influent Pump Station: Wastewater travels mainly by gravity to the treatment plant. Once at the plant, the water must be lifted so that it can again flow by gravity through the plant. At present, Oro Loma has four pumps that can lift over 100 million gallons of water a day. Since the plant only processes an average 16.5 million gallons of wastewater per day, it would seem these pumps are more than adequate to handle the load. The problem is that the 16.5 million gallons is for an average dry day. When it rains, the amount of water entering the plant goes up significantly. This is true even though storm water is not carried directly through the District's wastewater system. After a series of severe storms, the plant may be required to handle up to 106 million gallons of water per day. Federal guidelines require that the District be able to pump its highest flows with its largest pump out-of-service. Thus, a new pump is being added that can pump 35 million gallons of wastewater on its own. The structure for this pump is now half completed, and the necessary 30-inch influent piping is in place.

Chemically Enhanced Primary Treatment (CEPT): The new CEPT facility, which will help hasten the process by which solids settle out of wastewater, is now complete.
Digester Heating Building: The new digester heating building is complete. The building houses a new boiler, as well as three new heat exchangers that will efficiently maintain heating temperatures required by the digesters.
Disinfection Channel: The bottom of the expanded disinfection channel is now complete and the walls are under construction.

Pile Driving: Pile driving of 1,100 concrete piles is now complete and excavation on the new secondary clarifiers can begin.

New Secondary Clarifiers: This is the most time-consuming component of the restoration project.
One of the last stages of the wastewater treatment process, before the treated water is chlorinated and sent for discharge into the San Francisco Bay, involves the secondary clarifier tanks. Here the last of the solids are separated out of the wastewater stream. At present, Oro Loma has three tanks that are rectangular in shape, each with a 90-foot diameter treatment area; they are 9-feet deep. These clarifiers no longer meet modern treatment standards, and they will be replaced by three 120-foot diameter round clarifiers that are 18-feet deep. The work on the 700 piles required by the new clarifiers has been completed, and excavation for the tanks has begun.