When Mike McGill was elected to the Central San Board in 2006, Central San was discharging approximately 50 to 200 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Bay every day, which water could have been recycled and reused. As a Water Engineer, Mike thought this resource was precious and should not be wasted. However, sanitary districts had a long-standing approach of "treat and discharge." In his early years on the board, Mike McGill tried to get people interested in expanding the use of recycled water, but he could not generate enthusiasm for the effort. Board position was that water supply was the responsibility of the water districts, not the sanitary districts. Public perception was that recycled water was not needed and was "poop water" unsafe for use.

 

Recycled water proponents at Central San could not figure out how to get public acceptance for recycled water until Mike McGill met an activist who proposed that her team use some of Central San's recycled water and empty buffer land to grow fresh produce for donation to charity. This group also proposed that the urban farm could be used to teach science, technology, math, engineering and environmental protection to youth. This project fit Central San's mission, given that Central San's stated mission was Environmental Protection and Public Health. The project attacked nutritional poverty (nearly 25% of the children in the county suffer from poor nutrition) and would use a wasted resource (recycled water) and teach the community about environmental protection.

 

This team of activists met with and lobbied the Central San Board, along with legislators, educators, public health officials, community college board members, scientists, food activists and private citizens. Thousands signed petitions and wrote letters to ask Central San to support this proposed urban farm. In 2012, the team founded a non-profit AgLantis (501c-3) and in 2014 a 10-year lease was signed for Central San to provide the community a 14.8 acre urban farm known as The CoCo San Sustainable Farm.

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The farm garnered huge public support and much press attention because it was believed to be the first of it's kind in the country -- a sanitary district donating it's water and buffer land to feed, educate, and protect the environment. 

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AgLantis has been fulfilling its Environmental and Educational missions by demonstrating good stewardship of the land by building the soil organic matter and planting cover crops, both of which sequester carbon in the soil and teaching classes about the environment and how to reverse global warming with carbon sequestration.   

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AgLantis has dramatically increased public awareness of the beneficial uses of recycled water with both elected officials and the public. There are still barriers to be overcome, but there is greater acceptance and interest in reusing every drop of our limited fresh water.

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For more information about the CoCo San Sustainable Farm, read their description below from their website (www.AgLantis.org).

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SCALABLE
Sanitary districts in San Francisco Bay Area discharge as much as a trillion gallons of water in a year into the Bay waterways.  They also have thousands of acres of buffer land.  Our business model is scalable and once proven, can be replicated with other sanitary districts to utilize these precious resources and greatly reduce nutritional poverty.

 

QUADRUPLE BOTTOM LINE

AgLantis is a California non-profit public benefit corporation, 501c-3.The work we are doing on the CoCo San Sustainable Farm has a quadruple bottom line – Food Equity, Education and Job Training, Environmental Protection and Economic Development.