Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Fact Sheet Hanover Park Water Reclamation Plant Hoffman Estates. The Hanover Park WRP serves 56,532 people within an 11.2 mile Hanover Park WRP Service Area area and cleans an average of 12 mgd, with the capacity to clean 22 million gallons per day. In 1969 the MWRD purchased the Fischer Farm (200 acres adjacent to the Hanover Park Cook County WRP) and built the Upper DuPage reservoir which holds approximately 75 million gallons of stormwater overflow. The farmland also includes 100 usable acres for growing corn and soybeans. All of the solids produced at the Hanover Park WRP are recycled as soil conditioner for the farm fields. The harvested Hanover Park Water Reclamation Plant corn and soybeans are used for feedstock, The Hanover Park Water Reclamation ethanol and biodiesel. Plant (WRP) is one of seven wastewater The Hanover Park WRP serves treatment facilities owned and operated by Wastewater treatment 56,532 people within an 11.2-mile-area the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Wastewater treatment works using the same in northern Cook County, Illinois. of Greater Chicago (MWRD). The MWRD is processes that occur naturally in rivers to clean Hanover Park WRP Communities the wastewater treatment and stormwater water, incorporating physical and biological Bartlett Hoffman Estates management agency for the City of Chicago Hanover Park Schaumburg processes with a combination of air, gravity and 125 Cook County communities. We work and microorganisms. In a WRP, cleaning is every day to mitigate flooding and convert About Hanover Park WRP sped up dramatically, so a process that could wastewater into valuable resources like clean y 1200 Sycamore Avenue take weeks in a river happens over the course Hanover Park, IL 60133 water, phosphorus, biosolids and methane. of hours. y 20 employees y 12 buildings on 289 acres (includes farmland, If you live within our service area, the water 8 wells and storm retention reservoir) The goal of wastewater treatment is to that goes down your toilet, sinks and drains y In operation since July 19, 1963 reduce contaminants in water, such as eventually comes to us to be cleaned. We Receiving Stream suspended solids, biodegradable organic y DuPage River treat wastewater from homes and businesses matter, pathogenic bacteria and nutrients. throughout our 883-square-mile service Treatment Volume Contaminants are removed during three major y 12 million gallons/day (avg.) area in addition to stormwater from some phases of treatment: primary, secondary and y 22 million gallons/day (max.) communities. All of this wastewater and tertiary. All MWRD WRPs use primary and stormwater flows through local sewers into secondary treatment. Some of our facilities our interceptors before flowing to WRPs where also apply tertiary treatment due to the we clean the water and recover resources nature of the waterways into which they using a combination of physical, biological, and release water. sometimes chemical, treatment processes. Primary treatment: Wastewater arrives at The MWRD provides this service for over the plant and passes through coarse screens 5 million people. Nearly 450 billion gallons to filter out large debris. Then it is pumped of wastewater is treated by our seven facilities up from sewer level and flows by gravity every year. throughout the treatment plant. In primary In service since 1963, the Hanover Park WRP treatment, aerated grit tanks and settling serves residents in northwestern Cook and tanks use physical and mechanical means to DuPage County communities, including remove fats and oils and to separate solids Hanover Park, Bartlett, Schaumburg and from the water. The separated solids are Email [email protected] or call 312.751.6633 to schedule tours. mwrd.org pumped away to undergo their own treatment used to fertilize the adjacent farm fields. The process and eventually become biosolids, a sludge removed from wastewater at other sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers. WRPs is digested and then hauled to solids By the end of primary treatment, 60-80% of management areas for additional treatment the solids have been removed. and drying. The resulting biosolids are a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers Secondary treatment: In secondary and are used at golf courses, athletic fields, treatment, a community of microorganisms parks and recreational facilities, agricultural help remove organic material from the fields, forests, and for restoration of strip wastewater. The microbes need oxygen to mines and other disturbed lands. thrive, so air is pumped through the water in secondary aeration tanks. Next, the water Resource recovery: In addition to primary, Microbes such as these stalked ciliates help enters the final settling tanks where remaining secondary and tertiary treatment processes, remove bacteria and organic material from solids settle to the bottom and clean water we’re also testing innovative technologies the water in secondary treatment. flows out the top. and methods of recovering nutrients, such as phosphorus, from wastewater. Nutrient Tertiary treatment: Tertiary treatment pollution is harmful to waterways and includes any additional processes used to aquatic life and poses a threat to healthy further clean the water after it passes through drinking water supplies. Phosphorus is a non- secondary treatment, including ultraviolet renewable resource that is in dwindling supply light disinfection, sand filters and chemical and is essential for high-yield agriculture and a If you flush a toilet in treatments like chlorination. At Hanover myriad of industrial uses. The MWRD has the Park, water passes through sand filters and Bartlett, it takes less than means to recover up to 10,000 tons per year is then disinfected using chlorination and an hour to reach Hanover of phosphorus and convert it into a usable, de-chlorination. Clean water that has passed Park WRP (in dry weather) marketable product. through the Hanover Park WRP treatment and about 12 hours to go processes is released from the Hanover Park How do we know we’re doing a good job? through the treatment WRP into the DuPage River. It only takes Wastewater treatment facilities are regulated process before it is released 12 hours for wastewater to be converted under the Environmental Protection Agency’s from raw sewage to clean water. The same National Pollutant Discharge Elimination as clean water to the West transformation would require several weeks System (NPDES) permit program. NPDES Branch of the DuPage River. in a natural waterway. permits set rigorous standards that the water from the plant must meet. The National So the water is clean; what happens to Association of Clean Water Agencies has given Coarse screens catch large all the solids? Solids, also known as sludge, the Hanover Park WRP the association’s removed from the wastewater during objects and debris in water highest awards for compliance with these primary and secondary treatment are sent as it enters a wastewater standards. We also see the benefits of our to temperature-controlled digesters where treatment plant. work resulting in increased recreation on the microorganisms break them down in a process waterways, such as kayaking and canoeing, a Some of the things that have similar to composting. As with compost, the rebounding aquatic habitat and increases in turned up in the coarse digestion process converts nutrients to forms fish species. We’re reducing energy use at our screens of our plants over that plants can use, kills pathogens, and facilities with a goal of reducing greenhouse reduces odors. the years include: gas emissions, and we’re recovering valuable After digestion, the Hanover Park WRP resources and expanding the use of biosolids 9 A 14” diameter snapping turtle sludge is stored in lagoons before being throughout the region. 9 Car wheels and tires 9 2x4 studs 9 Super balls 9 Parking blocks 9 Money 9 A huge ball of rope 9 A 50 foot extension cord 9 Mop heads 9 Tree branches 9 Two opossums 9 ID card of a man from Argentina 9 A bowling ball (with no pins) 9 Fish MWRD biosolids, a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers, help beautify the Chicago 9 A prosthetic leg Park District’s Ping Tom Park. UPDATED 3/20/19 Email [email protected] or call 312.751.6633 to schedule tours. mwrd.org.