SAN ANTONIO \u2013 As concerns grow around wastewater treatment plants and water quality near the Edwards Aquifer, KSAT got a rare inside look at one of the region\u2019s largest existing facilities.<\/p>\n
The Salitrillo Wastewater Treatment Plant<\/a>, operated by the San Antonio River Authority<\/a>, handles the wastewater from about 33,000 people in northeast and eastern Bexar County.<\/p>\n The process starts with raw wastewater flowing into the facility.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the beginning part of the treatment aspect, where raw wastewater is coming in\u201d Travis Krueger, superintendent of plant operations for the San Antonio River Authority, said. <\/p>\n From there, wastewater is pumped through the facility.<\/p>\n \u201cEach of these pumps will do 5,000 gallons a minute, 15,000 gallons a minute total max,\u201d Krueger explained.<\/p>\n Officials said one of the most important parts of the process is something that may not look very appealing.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the heart and soul of the process, is that fluid right there,\u201d Krueger said. \u201cIt does look very nasty, but what it is, is a population of microorganisms.\u201d<\/p>\n Those microorganisms play a major role in cleaning the water.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bacteria feed off of the organic compounds that are found in the wastewater, and so they break those compounds down, and they help break them down to clean it out,\u201d Krueger said.<\/p>\n The microbes and wastewater are then sent into one of five aeration basins.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the microbes, along with the raw wastewater, are introduced into any one of the five aeration basins,\u201d Krueger said. \u201cAnd this is where everything is broken down.\u201d<\/p>\n Once that process is complete, the water moves to final disinfection.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter that, on the outside launder, the outside trough, all that water is ready for its final disinfection,\u201d Krueger said.<\/p>\n Rather than chlorine, the plant uses ultraviolet light.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is where our final disinfection is happening,\u201d Krueger said. \u201cSo we utilize ultraviolet light for the final disinfections versus alternative disinfections such as chlorine.\u201d<\/p>\n After being disinfected, the treated water is discharged into Salitrillo Creek.<\/p>\n \u201cThis water discharges into the Salitrillo Creek that will eventually make its way to the Martinez Creek and then to the Cibolo Creek and eventually to the San Antonio River,\u201d Krueger said.<\/p>\n Because of growing debate surrounding proposed wastewater treatment plants near the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, KSAT asked how close this plant is to sensitive groundwater areas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are a good distance away from the recharge zone. We don\u2019t discharge close to it,\u201d Krueger said. \u201cNow this water does infiltrate groundwater sources though downstream, through the natural earth process. But none of it is done for a direct ground injection at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Plant officials also said the water leaving the facility is often cleaner than some natural bodies of water.<\/p>\n \u201cAs it\u2019s coming in, it\u2019s getting polluted already because of the natural resource of, you know, you\u2019ve got algae growth, fish, minnows, turtles, birds,\u201d Krueger said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re discharging into it is a far better quality.\u201d<\/p>\n Read also:<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 As concerns grow around wastewater treatment plants and water quality near the Edwards Aquifer, KSAT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[698,82,84,83,410],"class_list":{"0":"post-233154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-bexar-county","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","11":"tag-san-antonio-news","12":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}