History of Goleta Sanitary District

World War II was still raging in 1942 when Goleta Sanitary District was formed under the Health and Safety Code of the 1923 Sanitary District Act to serve the rural agricultural area called Goleta. Only 1,500 people lived within the District. In those years, sewage wastes were disposed of through individual cesspools and septic tanks. Some farsighted citizens recognized that the community could not grow under those limiting conditions.

Building A Sanitary System With the ending of World War II, the fledgling District applied to the navy Department to connect its sewer lines to the Marine Air Base, located on the site of today’s municipal airport. Plans were drawn to build a sewer system and treatment plant. In July 1951, the new plant was opened for the first time to an enthusiastic community.

Rapid Growth Requires New Facilities By 1965, rapid growth in the Goleta Valley led to construction of the District’s mile-long ocean outfall pipeline and an expansion of the treatment plant. In order to serve 25 times the number of people it served when it was founded, Goleta Sanitary District enlarged and improved its treatment system to meet the needs of the rapidly growing community.

Meeting New Treatment Requirements The existing treatment plant underwent a second extensive upgrade to its operations in 1988 in order to meet the new demands of the community and increased receiving water requirements.

These facilities underwent a substantial upgrade in 1988 whereby the District adopted the current treatment process allowed under the 301(h) provision of the Clean Water Act.