Water Reclamation Facility (WRF)

A new wastewater facility was put online in 2010, but Cherokee Metro District was notified three months prior that a 400 mg/L limit for total dissolved solids (TDS) would be added to its discharge permit limits. That facility was not designed to reduce TDS and regularly discharged above this limit.  

Cherokee Metro pushed back on compliance with the permitted limit for almost 10 years until being forced to come up with a solution to their high TDS output at the WRF.

This solution? Burns & McDonnell (a company that designs and builds water and wastewater treatment plants), along with Garney Construction, started preliminary design of the new facility in October 2019 and broke ground on this $45 million improvements project in January 2021. 

The new additions to the facility were substantially completed in the summer of 2023 with a ground breaking ceremony and grand opening event on July 18, 2023.