November 23, 1998 is considered by many Southern Californians as the most important day in the history of healing Santa Monica Bay.  On this day, the City of Los Angeles' Hyperion Treatment Plant operated at full secondary treatment capacity for the first time in nearly half a century.  This achievement assured the 4 million residents of Los Angeles and millions of more neighbors and visitors that the world-renowned Santa Monica Bay would be protected from wastewater pollution for future generations.
	History In the late 1800s, wastewater from the small Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles was conveyed from the center of town through natural waterways to the ocean.  In 1892, the City purchased 200 acres of ocean front property and from 1894 until 1925, raw sewage was discharged into near-shore ocean waters at the Hyperion Treatment Plant's future location.  In response to objections from swimmers and visitors to Santa Monica to raw sewage in their bathing waters in 1925, the City of Los Angeles built and began operating the first treatment facility at the Hyperion site:  a simple screening plant. In 1950, when the Hyperion Treatment Plant began operation, it was the largest on the west coast - one of the most modern treatment plants in the world. Hyperion had full secondary as well as primary treatment facilities, air quality control and odor management systems. Sludge drying equipment produced a recyclable soil amendment for many years. The treatment plant was among the first in the world to capitalize upon the energy value of the sludge it treated; anaerobic digesters have yielded a fuel gas similar to natural gas for over forty years. In the 1980's, Los Angeles kept pace with the developing industry of energy recovery from renewable resources. An innovative drying and combustion system was added to extract all possible energy from sludge organics. Challenged to efficiently produce electrical power and reduce air emissions, Los Angeles introduced many world-first applications of environmentally advanced energy and air quality technologies. The Hyperion Treatment Plant has added some of the most advanced wastewater treatment processes and technology. The facilities that were so forward-reaching in the 1950s has been upgraded to meet the increasingly stringent environmental and public health demands of the decades to come. Secondary treatment capacity has been expanded to prevent virtually all minute particles suspended in effluent from being discharged to the ocean environment. Air emission controls continue to represent the leading edge of technology. Odor management facilities are integrated in all improvements. Resource recovery programs capitalize upon every possible opportunity to recycle renewable resources of wastewater and sludge treatment by-products.