AMSA's 2004 Summer Conference

Leading the Way ... POTWs Take
Environmental Protection Beyond the Pipe
July 20 - 23, 2004, The Westin Tabor Center, Denver, Colorado

2004 Facility Tour
Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District’s Central Treatment Plant & Denver Water Recycling Plant
Thursday, July 22
12:30 - 5:00 pm

The Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District is a regional government that provides wholesale wastewater transmission and treatment service to 58 local governments in the Denver area. These local governments provide retail wastewater services to approximately 1.5 million people.

Denver Metro’s Central Treatment Plant
The Central Treatment Plant normally treats about 160 million gallons of wastewater per day that it collects through approximately 230 miles of regional interceptor sewers. Over the past several years, an extended drought has reduced the wastewater flows to the plant to about 140 million gallons per day (MGD).

The Metro District has recently completed several significant projects on the plant site including an upgrade of the process control system and a new high solids centrifuge dewatering and solids handling system. Several projects are also underway to increase the treatment capability of the facility, including chemically enhanced primary treatment and two-phase anaerobic digestion.

Denver Water Recycling Plant
Denver Water supplies water for the City and County of Denver and a number of surrounding suburbs. Denver Water’s recycled water system will eventually treat and deliver 17,660 acre feet of water per year for industrial and outdoor irrigation uses. The project will cost a total of $164 million when it is complete.

The recently completed initial phase of the Recycling Plant has a peak day capacity of 30 MGD that will ultimately be expanded to 45 MGD and includes biological, chemical, and physical processes. Biological aerated filters are used to provide additional ammonia removal in the feed effluent from the Central Treatment Plant. The water is then treated through chemical addition, flocculation sedimentation, and mono media filtration and then disinfected. The recycled water is used for industrial cooling water; irrigation at parks, schools and golf courses; and used at facilities like the Denver Zoo.