City of Grand Rapids Water Resource Recovery Facility

The City of Grand Rapids Water Resource Recovery Facility (WRRF) serves the city of Grand Rapids and 10 surrounding communities to treat an average of 14 billion gallons of wastewater annually - an average of 38 million gallons a day. WRRF has a capacity of treating 61 million gallons a day. The City of Grand Rapids operates 54 sanitary sewage lift stations, 9 storm water stations, 4 meter stations, 14 rain gauges, 100 sewer flow monitors, 1,100 miles of sanitary sewer, 23,347 sanitary sewer manholes, 383 miles of storm sewer, and 11,355 storm sewer manholes.

The Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP) at WRRF issues, tracks, maintains, samples, and reports results for 85 industrial user permits, tracks the activities of over 6,000 non-domestic users throughout the system, and is responsible for monitoring and treating effluent from industrial users in 8 outlying jurisdictions. IPP also tracks pollutants and the effect of the Water Resource Recovery Facility by monitoring industrial sources of pollutants. This is done by maintaining and collecting samples on a daily basis from 6 sampling devices, placed at strategic locations, to capture discharges from groups of industrial end users. IPP monitors effluent toxicity on a monthly basis by collecting samples from the Water Resource Recovery Facility effluent.

With a focus on energy reduction and reuse, WRRF uses energy recovery from the facility’s final effluent to heat and cool the Environmental Services Department’s administration building. The facility also uses final effluent for operations and maintenance around the facility. Combined, these activities recover an estimated 360,000 gallons of water a day. This is just one example of the many green initiatives driven by the City of Grand Rapids pledge to build a “Sustainable City Future.”