Aqua PA making $20 million in improvements to Greenville wastewater plant

Aqua Pennsylvania is pouring $20 million into upgrading the Greenville Wastewater Treatment Plant. The company bought the plant back in February and has plans for major work over the next decade. 

The plant runs sewage water from residential homes and businesses through four phases. The first and fourth processes are getting some immediate attention under the new ownership. 

The sewer first enters the plant through the headworks. Those will be replaced and will have a grit collection system added to catch things like sand and rocks as their first step of treatment.

Aqua will also be prioritizing the last step of the treatment process by making sure the water going into the Shenango River doesn't have any chemicals in it. 

“This is where we’ve already settled, removed any solids, grit,” Zach Martin, the Western Area Manager of Aqua Pennsylvania explained about the last treatment step at the plant. “This tanks primary purpose is to disinfect the waste water stream.”

To get the water clean they use chlorine gas. Once it's done its job, that chemical needs to be removed before going back into the environment. Aqua will be upgrading to an automatic removal system that will monitor the water 24/7 and keep them inline with standards set by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. 

Future improvements that are expected to start in two to three years include upgrading the trickling tanks.

“The waters pumped up here, the distribution arms spread the wastewater flow out over the filter media ... the way it’s distributed, it allows a biological film to grow on the media and that actually interacts with the wastewater and helps remove organics,” Martin explained about the tanks in the second step of the treatment process.

Both tanks will undergo a total rehabilitation with new filters for the water to run through. Martin also said they could add a third tank later on. 

The plant treats four million gallons of wastewater a day for Greenville, West Salem Township and Hempfield Township in Mercer County. It hasn't seen an upgrade since the mid 1990’s according to Martin. 

Greenville Borough leaders were considering a complete plant replacement but instead sold it to Aqua who will phase in the upgrades over the next ten years.

“In the last three years we’ve invested over a billion dollars into water and wastewater infrastructure,” Martin said about the Aqua Corporation. “...It’s continuous improvement, so slow measured continuous improvement allows us to keep these facilities running.”

Customers will see more Aqua workers in the county as they test the collection systems over the next year and a half.

Those now getting services from Aqua will not see a rate increase for the next two to three years.