At Aqua Pennsylvania, we know that wastewater treatment is essential. It protects public health, supports a safe environment, and helps every day to preserve source water, supports outdoor recreation, safeguards wildlife, and ensures that our communities thrive.
Reliable wastewater service starts with sustainable operations and ready-to-serve infrastructure. Unfortunately, much of our water and wastewater infrastructure, such as pipelines, are underground and easily forgotten. When our critical infrastructure is neglected, it can cause irreparable damage that effects all of us.
In 2014 Aqua purchased the Penn Township wastewater treatment system. At the time, the wastewater treatment plant had a compliance rate of just 35 percent, failing on three key parameters of its National Discharge Elimination System permit that contribute to local environmental degradation and to the Chesapeake Bay.
As you may know, the southwestern part of Chester County, which includes Penn Township, is part of the Susquehanna River basin, the largest tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, providing more than half of the total freshwater flow.
IMPACTS ON THE CHESAPEAKE BAY
The Chesapeake Bay is the nation’s largest estuary and faces serious problems due to pollutants discharging into the environment, impacting source water quality for drinking water treatment plants downstream and leading to fish kills and changes in aquatic biodiversity. Phosphorus, dissolved oxygen, and sediment are three major contributors to the poor health of our waterways. According to the DEP, the water quality of the Chesapeake cannot be restored without Pennsylvania’s help, and that starts with local streams.
Properly treated wastewater is a major factor in improving the ecological health of the Bay, reducing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution which fuels algae growth in the water and blocks sunlight from reaching underwater grasses that serve as food and habitat.
BENEFICIAL STRIDES
Immediately after purchasing Penn Township wastewater treatment operations our engineers and operations personnel began working on resolving the many problems it faced. Over the course of eight years, we’ve invested $11 million and completed 15 improvements projects that increase our employee’s safety and improve operations which now reliably serves local businesses, neighborhoods, and the community. Our investment in Penn Township corrected issues of high levels of total phosphorous and suspended solids in the nearby streams that discharge into the Chesapeake Bay.
Aqua is proud to share that since 2017 our compliance rate has been 100%. It is a privilege to serve Penn Township and to help protect the Chesapeake Bay.
