A wastewater reuse project that took 14 years of planning is winning big environmental awards for the Riverhead Sewer District on Long Island, New York.
The wastewater treatment plant (1.5 mgd design, 1 mgd average) sits at the edge of the environmentally sensitive Peconic River Estuary, an EPA-designated nationally significant waterway. The shallow estuary has been prone to algae blooms, including the brown tide that decimated the scallop population in the 1980s.
The plant, which discharges into the Peconic River, had been a target of criticism whenever problems from nitrogen pollution occurred. Now it wins accolades from environmentalists for cutting its nitrogen
