Years of planning, design, construction and coordination will come to fruition for more than 50 percent of Salt Lake County residents when the Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility is dedicated Friday.
The facility was organized as an interlocal governmental unit in 1978, for the purpose of constructing and operating a regional wastewater treatment plant. The plant operation is the only charter and responsibility of this governmental organization.Central Valley is "owned" by the board of directors, comprised of elected officials representing each of the member entities: Salt Lake Suburban #1, Cottonwood, Granger/Hunter, Taylorsville/Bennion and Kearns.
Central Valley grew out of a country-wide "basin plan" in the mid-1970's, in response to the Clean WAter Act of 1972. The plan was later refined to an "area-wide" plan, which called for the consolidation of many small plants into two regionalized treatment plants in the county and one in Salt Lake City.
By constructing the new plant, the county hopes to reduce pollutant load on the Jordan River. Central Valley's discharge permit, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, is more stringent than the old plant's permit, and hence more beneficial to aquatic life in the Jordan River.
The overall cost of construction for Central Valley is approximately $133 million, making it the second largest locally-owned public works project in the history of the state.
The Central Valley Board faced many hurdles during construction of the facility, including removal of three million tons of radioactive mill tailings from the old Vitro Site, where Central Valley is now located. The tailings removal process, a joint state/federal undertaking, began in 1985 and was completed in 1987.
Finding and developing beneficial uses for by-products of the wastewater treatment process is another charge the Central Valley Board has assigned to the facillity's management. Two by-products -- digester gas and sludge -- are used to save energy and regenerate the environment.
The co-generation system was installed at Central Valley to take advantage of the facility's digester gas production, which amounts to about 400,000 cubic feet per day. The digester gas is mixed with antural gas, then used to run the engine generators, providing almost 70 percent of the power for the facility. Waste heat is recovered and converted to heating and cooling for the plant.
After two years of evaluation, Central Valley and Kennecott Copper reached an agreement to dispose of the sludge near Bingham Canyon to try and help Kennecott implement a mine reclamation plan. Kennecott will grow various grasses and other soil stabilization plants to determine the best methods of reclamation of mined areas.