Don't Truck It — Pipe It

District 2 San Diego councilmember Kevin Faulconer and Mayor Jerry Sanders announced on December 15 a new recycling program — the first of its kind in California — for a more environmentally safe method of transporting methane gas from Point Loma’s wastewater treatment plant.

Last week, on December 8, the San Diego City Council unanimously adopted a plan that called for the recycling of the methane. The big change in the plan was the method of how the gas would be transferred — from using trucks to using pipelines instead. (Several Point Loma residents had voiced their concerns regarding the safety of the trucks.) The program will use existing SDG&E fuel lines to transport the methane, and the gas will be recycled and used.

Two local sites — UCSD and the South Bay Water Reclamation Plant — will receive the gas. The project is set to begin in 2011 and is expected to eliminate the release of 1 million cubic feet of methane gas daily.