Trades Come Together on Big PUC Biodigester Job

By George Verlaine | contributing photographer

As part of its huge sewer system overhaul, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is investing $3 billion in its Southeast Treatment Plant in Bayview-Hunters Point. The idea is to build a new wastewater pollution treatment system that, once complete, will smell, look, and work better. A big element of that system is the biosolids digester — a.k.a. the biodigester.

This state-of-the-art facility is now under construction. It’s designed to “produce higher-quality biosolids, capture and treat odors more effectively, and maximize biogas utilization and energy recovery,” according to the PUC’s website.

The massive undertaking is being spearheaded by a partnership of general contractors MWH and Webcor Builders, which has put together a jobsite filled with locally hired union building and construction trades workers. When we visited the biodigester buildout on Wednesday, August 9, we met so many enthusiastic electricians, operating engineers, laborers, cement masons, plumbers, ironworkers, and more, all of them working together on this one enormous public works project.

We found ourselves thinking, “Now this is what a jobsite should look like.” We thought you ought to see it, too.

Trades Come Together on Big PUC Biodigester Job

JOIN OUR ENEWS