Every municipality’s goal is ultimately to protect its residents — but losing 5 percent of your housing stock to wildfire can make that difficult. The resulting inflow to the wastewater system after such a catastrophe presents other challenges.
A wildfire burned through 36,800 acres of California’s Sonoma and Napa counties last October, and the city of Santa Rosa found itself picking up the pieces of 3,000 structures that had been obliterated.
While debris removal and...