Largest Treatment Plant in Watershed Starts $1.4 Billion Project to Cut Nutrients

摘要

The largest wastewater treatment plant in the Chesapeake Bay watershed broke ground May 20 on a $1.4 billion project to cut its nitrogen outflow nearly in half by the end of 2014. The Blue Plains plant in Washington, D.C., handles all the wastewater produced in the capital city and many of its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, according to the plant's operator, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, or DC Water. The project includes $1 billion in upgrades required by the plant's National Pollution Discharge Elimination Systems permit, DC Water General Manager George S. Hawkins said in announcing the ground breaking.