Perhaps no wastewater treatment facility blends old and new as well as the Kline’s Island Wastewater Treatment Plant operated by the Lehigh County Authority in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
On one hand, the staff at the 40 mgd (design) plant operates a fixed-nozzle rock media trickling filter that dates to 1931. On the other, Kline’s Island switched to sodium hypochlorite instead of gaseous chlorine for effluent disinfection and replaced old motor control centers and breakers with new equipment.
Future projects will upgrade process control and address wet-weather flows that affect plant capacity. They’re balancing old and new so well that the plant recently received
