Most people don’t think about it much—but when you flush the toilet or drain the bath—where does the water go? Up until the 1950s in Vallejo, untreated sewage flowed directly into the waterways around us. Today, the District makes sure that only clean water is returned to the Bay.

Vallejo is a community of about 120,000 people that sits between two important waterways that feed into the San Francisco Bay in California. The Napa River turns into the Mare Island Strait on our western waterfront. To our south flows the Carquinez Strait that passes water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers into the Bay. All around this beautiful community are some of the richest wetlands in the world.

In the early 1950s people began understanding that raw sewage was killing off most of the life in the San Francisco Bay. They began understanding that if the water wasn’t healthy for animals it was also unhealthy for people. People in Vallejo understood that it was time to start cleaning up!

 

At the same time flooding was threatening lives and property in Vallejo. Even small storms would flood low areas in our hilly community. Storms coupled with high tides often resulted in serious property damage. Vallejo needed a way to safely channel storm water so that people’s lives and property weren’t threatened.

Vallejo Sanitation and Flood Control District was created as a “special district” through acts of the California legislature. A special district is “an agency of the state, formed pursuant to general law or special act, for the local performance of governmental or proprietary functions within limited boundaries” (GC 56036). Act 8934 created the District as a special district that is not part of any other agency. We are not a division of the City of Vallejo or Solano County governments. We are an independent agency that provides sanitary sewer and flood control services. We provide services for Vallejo and the unincorporated area in the greater Vallejo area. This includes areas such as Mare Island, Glen Cove, Home Acres, and Sky Valley.

Special districts can be distinguished by their major source of funds. Enterprise special districts rely heavily on non-tax fees such as user fees to fund their operation. The District is an enterprise special district. It relies mostly on user fees to fund its approximately $13 million/year operating budget. Non-enterprise special districts rely heavily on property tax revenues to fund their operation.

The District is solely responsible for the operation and maintenance, expansion and improvement of sanitary sewer and storm water services within our sphere of influence. We play a major part in the expansion and improvement of sewer and storm water services in our area. We are part of the reason Vallejo continues to be a community that is growing in size and popularity.

© 2005 Vallejo Sanitation and Flood Control District