Wastewater

Why We Treat Wastewater

On June 22nd, 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire.  Located on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio, the river was a cesspool of untreated waste and oil that burned for 20 minutes before finally being extinguished.  While the fire itself was not that severe, it did serve to focus the media's attention on the grossly polluted waterways of this nation.  The resulting public outcry is largely responsible for the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the construction of a wastewater treatment plant in almost every town, city, and borough of this country.

Wastewater, which is the medium used to carry waste away from a community, is comprised mostly of water (99.9%).  But if we choose not to remove that 0.1% of waste, any river that receives it will no longer support aquatic life or human use.

The town provides a wastewater system consisting of over 17 miles of sewer pipes and a 700,000 gallon-per-day wastewater treatment plant completed in 2008 to meet all nitrate and phosphorus removal requirements of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality as part of the Chesapeake Bay Clean-up Program. The Town has a long-term contract with one local industry for up to 200,000 gallons per day of wastewater treatment capacity. Including that commitment, the average treatment for 2015 was 370,000 gallons per day or 53% of the plant’s capacity.

To learn more about how wastewater treatment works, visit this Wiki site.