Water Resource Recovery Facility

The City of Essex Junction Water Resource Recovery Facility is a 3.3 million gallon per day advanced treatment facility that serves the City of Essex Junction and the towns of Williston and Essex. Waste treatment began here in 1965 with the original primary treatment plant. The site and facility has since gone through several modifications. Most recently, in 2012 the facility underwent a $15 million maintenance upgrade focused on rehabilitating existing equipment, adding new replacement treatment processes, reducing energy use, and designing for continued long-term service to the community, all while protecting the water quality of Lake Champlain.

Water resource recovery is also about protecting public health. In fact, waste treatment originated to remove contaminated water from the home in order to prevent the spread of disease. This long-standing practice will continue to be at the core of our work for generations to come.

The water recycling process we use treats waste while producing biosolids, a regulated product used as a fertilizer on nearby farms. To ensure safety and meet state and federal regulations, the biosolids are generated in an anaerobic digester where pathogens are destroyed making the material safe for recycling. This process also results in methane gas which we use to run the boilers that heat our digester and control building. To continue working towards our sustainability goals, we designed our second Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system that generates 150 kw of electricity, supplies heat for our treatment process and control buildings, and reduces our greenhouse gas emissions. For more information about our energy efficiency, check out our Energy Efficiency at the Plant page.