This manual is intended to provide guidance and criteria for the design and selection of small-scale wastewater treatment facilities. It provides both the information necessary to select, size, and design such wastewater treatment unit processes, and guidance to generally available and accepted references for such information.

For the purpose of this manual, small-scale wastewater treatment systems are those with average daily design flows less than 379 000 liters per day (L/d) or 100,000 gallons per day (gal/d), including septic tanks for flows less than 18 900 L/d (5000 gal/d), small prefabricated or package plants for flows between 18 900 L/d (5000 gal/d) and 190 000 L/d (50,000 gal/d), and larger prefabricated treatment systems with capacities of no more than 379 000 L/d (100,000 gal/d).

The following manual provides a review of considerations and steps required for the design, construction and operation of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment in rural applications (i.e. livestock operations, food processing, septic waste treatment, etc). The information provided herein is to be used by practitioners (i.e. professionals with a working knowledge of geotechnical engineering, hydrology, hydrogeology and wastewater treatment) to provide them with enough detailed information to determine if this application is applicable to their needs and if so, to help them develop, implement and operate a constructed wetland treatment system.

The guidelines outlined herein provide a standard system approach for a simple low cost, low maintenance solution. The constructed wetlands discussed in this manual are therefore limited to simple systems such as those found in nature, and do not consider more complex designs such as sub-surface systems and complex mechanical devices. The design examples used in this manual are therefore based on the simpler loading rates methods. This manual can be used by technical staff in provincial agencies, consulting firms, construction companies as well as potential operators and owners of constructed wetland systems.

This guide provides an overview of all of the technical aspects of your drinking water system so you can make sound decisions as you manage the system. This guide does not provide all of the detail and expertise to make decisions about operations and processes. You are encouraged to work with your system’s certified operator(s) for this purpose and consult with him or her for advanced issues.

Water systems are moving toward “sustainability” these days. This includes doing more planning, thinking about the long-term, and finding ways to be more self-reliant. In the coming years, our nation’s drinking water systems will face unprecedented challenges: water shortages, aging infrastructure, an aging workforce, and lack of funding, to name the most obvious issues.

As a local leader, your own actions can set the tone for the rest of the community. Therefore, it is your responsibility to be as informed as possible about the systems and processes that convey safe drinking water to your community’s residences, businesses and institutions. This guide will supply you with some meaningful information about the state of your drinking water supplies. When you have more information, you can make better decisions about current and future operations of your community’s system. By reading this guide, you are becoming engaged in the process of learning more about your responsibilities and providing an essential resource in your community.

Remember, safe drinking water is up to you and your community. Be informed. Be engaged. And be a leader.

Most of us take our wastewater (sewer) systems for granted. We flush the toilet or wash the dishes or our clothes, and, with very few exceptions, the dirty water leaves our home. While most of the time our wastewater is out of sight and out of mind, what goes on behind the scenes to carry out this important function is very complex and requires the input of many parts and people. We all generate gallons of wastewater every day and often don’t think about how it is dealt with, yet it often requires so much to provide this service to us—strict health regulations, a knowledge of chemical, biological and technical processes, budgeting to run a business, and miles of infrastructure to make it convenient, to name just a few things.

As a leader in your community, making decisions about your community’s wastewater system is probably part of your role. And it is an important role. You may be on a board or council that is the highest decision-making body for your community’s wastewater system. This means you, along with the other leaders, need to oversee all of the activities that go on in the system—not with an extensive knowledge of each activity, but at least with an awareness of what happens and what is required.

Whatever your role or capacity is, you are to be congratulated for taking an interest in your community’s wastewater treatment processes. You may want more information about what it takes to provide the vital service of treating wastewater. This guide to the operations of wastewater systems for non-technical audiences is designed to explain a typical small-community water system—from the time wastewater leaves a home, through the collection and treatment system, to the final discharge to a receiving body of water or reuse—in an easy-to-understand manner.

Design Techniques, Construction Practices & Materials for Affordable Housing

Green building is a time-tested, practical and intuitive approach to creating environmentally sound buildings. Green building combines age-old wisdom; tradition and collaborative design processes; and modern building science, technology and materials application.

Green building structures are energy efficient, conserve resources, create healthier indoor environments and offer durable and beautiful spaces that use environmentally suitable materials. Green building incorporates integrated design concepts, solar orientation, appropriate footprint sizing, glazing awareness, material durability, economic life-cycle analysis, material reuse and salvage, natural material content, locally available materials and economic sustainability.

These Home Remodeling Green Building Guidelines were developed:

• To present a range of voluntary green measures for building professionals and homeowners to choose from when remodeling a home in California
• To provide local governments with an educational tool for city staff, building professionals and homeowners interested in green residential remodeling
• To offer cost-effective suggestions to minimize construction-related waste, create healthier and more durable homes, reduce operating costs for homeowners and support local manufacturers and suppliers of resource-efficient building materials
• To create a policy foundation for local governments interested in implementing a green building program
• To establish regional consistency in green building guidelines to increase predictability for building professionals
• To integrate varying residential initiatives in order to achieve greater simplicity and local applicability
• To offer methods to reduce the impacts of building in California communities, including solid waste management, water conservation, energy efficiency and resource conservation
• To offer a set of guidelines developed by an independent, third-party source in collaboration with a wide range of expert stakeholders

These residential Guidelines were developed for the following reasons:

• To provide local governments with an educational tool for city staff, builders and homeowners interested in green residential construction
• To present a range of voluntary measures for builders to choose from when constructing a green home in California
• To create a policy foundation for local governments interested in implementing a green building program
• To establish regional consistency in green building guidelines to increase predictability for builders
• To integrate varying residential initiatives in order to achieve greater simplicity and local applicability
• To offer a set of guidelines developed by an independent, third-party source.

The purpose of this manual is to provide an overview of coastal geology and a discussion of data sources and study methods applicable to coastal geological field studies. “Coastal geology” is defined as the science of landforms, structures, rocks, and sediments with particular emphasis on the coastal zone. Material in this manual has been adapted from textbooks and technical literature from the fields of geology, geomorphology, geophysics, oceanography, meteorology, and geotechnical engineering.

The practicing scientist involved in coastal projects is expected to be able to obtain a general overview of most aspects of coastal geology and to be able to refer to the reference list for additional information on specific topics.

This manual describes evaluation techniques for both large and small hydro projects, as well as pumped-storage hydro. These procedures can be applied to the modification or rehabilitation of existing hydro projects as well as to new projects.

Information is presented on power system operation and the role of hydropower, the development of data for making hydropower studies, the flow-duration and sequential routing techniques of estimating energy potential, the considerations involved in sizing of powerplants, computer models available for making power studies, the use of reservoir storage for hydropower, special problems involved in estimating costs for hydro projects, techniques for establishing need for hydro projects, alternative approaches for evaluating hydropower benefits, and the methodology for computing power values. Techniques are presented for evaluating multi-project systems as well as single projects, and for incorporating power production in multiple purpose project or system operation.

Appendixes include example calculations, a glossary, a list of references, and a table of conversion factors. An outline of the steps in a hydropower study is provided together with an appendix summarizing the technical material to be presented in a hydropower study report. Information on coordination required with the regional Federal Power Marketing Administrations and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is also presented.