New Wastewater Treatment Plant

In spring 2001, the Jackson Energy Authority opened its second wastewater treatment plant to handle wastewater from customers living north of Interstate 40. The plant's capacity is four million gallons of wastewater a day; it opened treating 2.5 million gallons of water a day.

The plant is located on DeLoach Road in North Madison County, near the Middle Fork of the Forked Deer River.

When wastewater reaches the plant, seventy-foot-long pumps take the wastewater from the underground collection system into the treatment process.

The wastewater first goes through a series of screens to physically remove debris before it enters a biological cleaning process. Unlike conventional treatment plans, the new plant uses a sequential batch process using two, three-million gallon basins. While one basin fills and treats the wastewater, the second is settling and then discharging.

Water leaving the plant and entering the Forked Deer River is clean and rich in oxygen. This prevents any disturbance to fish and aquatic life in the river.

Meanwhile, the treatment process creates biosolids (the micro-organisms responsible for cleaning the water.) Jackson Energy Authority plans to inject these biosolids into surrounding land to naturally enrich the soil.