Currents Digital Currents January/February 2019 | Page 2

The Way It Was: Small Seaside Pump
Station Salvaged Beaches for Locals
1941—Construction of Seacliff Pumping Station #2 was done by the New Year, and the small facility
went to work soon after. It was there to rid nearby China and Baker beaches of the raw sewage that
was being discharged through an old outfall pipe only to wash back onto the scenic sandy stretches
that had become popular destinations for fishermen, winter strollers, and warm-weather bathers.
Fitting neatly into the rocks below Seacliff, the station pumped sewage and storm water from the
surrounding neighborhood back into the sewer system and through the “Old Richmond Tunnel” to
the City’s first treatment plant, located in Golden Gate Park and no longer in operation.
Today Seacliff #2 still serves about 12 blocks of homes. It now sends the effluent into the 1990s
Richmond Transport Storage Tunnel and on to the Westside Transport System along the City’s
west side to the Oceanside Treatment Plant.