A glimpse of the (wastewater) future in Colorado

A few weeks ago, the EPIC Water Team got a glimpse of the future. The future of water and wastewater utilities, that is. 

South Platte Renew service area (Credit: South Platte Renew)

Several members of our EPIC Water Team had the opportunity to visit South Platte Renew, a wastewater treatment plant jointly owned by the Cities of Englewood and Littleton just outside of Denver, Colorado. The plant is located on a sprawling 53 acre property within commuting distance of the state capital, housing 25 buildings and 50 process tanks. The service area for the plant spreads across 108 square miles, includes 19 sanitation districts, and serves over 300,000 customers.

View of the South Platte Renew property, with the Rocky Mountains in the distance (2024)

As Pieter Van Ry, Director of South Platte Renew & City of Englewood Utilities, tells it, this plant has been recycling water before recycling and sustainability became popular buzzwords. They have been doing this by taking care of other people’s business (literally) since 1982, when the intermunicipal agreement between Englewood and Littleton was first established, or even earlier when the plant was first built in the 1970s. The concept “renew” is, afterall, not only part of their mission but also in their name.

What makes South Platte Renew unique, though, is not just the attention they pay to ensuring the water they release back into the South Platte River is cleaner than the river water itself, but how they weave innovation into everything they do, from the revenue-generating biogas and re-usable biosolids to their painstaking attention to oft-overlooked aspects like workforce development.

The EPIC Water Team at South Platte Renew in front of the potable water mobile demonstration project (2024)

While people generally get a little uncomfortable when the topic of recycled water comes up, this is happening in various ways at South Platte Renew, where the plant cleans over 20 million gallons of wastewater everyday, using native bacteria and as few chemicals and as little energy as possible. This treated and disinfected effluent is then released back into the South Platte River, following strict protocols as part of their discharge permit regulated by the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment. In fact, this “renewed” water makes up a large portion of the river flow throughout most of the year. Other Front Range communities downstream draw water from the river to drink or to irrigate farmland. Going one step further, though, South Platte Renew is currently in a partnership with the Colorado School of Mines to explore the use of the plant’s disinfected and treated water as potable drinking water, with a mobile demonstration at the plant. 

Solids removed during treatment are pumped into anaerobic digesters for a minimum of fifteen days, then into centrifuges where excess water is removed. The final product is then hauled to local farms, where it is used as fertilizer, another example of the plant’s commitment to sustainability.

How gas from the plant is converted to natural gas (Credit: South Platte Renew)

South Platte Renew is not just recycling water and biosolids, though. The plant generates approximately 470,000 cubic feet of gas per day, which is equivalent to about 2,060 gallons of gasoline. As part of its efforts to optimize energy use and plan for re-use, South Platte Renew, since 2019, recycles methane that is produced through the wastewater treatment process, roughly 60 percent of which would have otherwise been released into the atmosphere. With a gas recovery system located onsite, nearly all of the gas produced is purified, sold, and injected directly into an Xcel Energy pipeline that runs near the facility. The revenue produced from sales to Xcel Energy, in addition to participation in federal and state fossil fuel offset programs and an additional low-carbon fuel standard program, means that South Platte Renew will recoup its original $7.8 million investment in this innovative technology within a few short years, by 2025. Being innovative in this case pays off.

South Platte Renew staff leading a tour of the plant for the EPIC Water Team (2024)

As a leader in the wastewater industry, South Platte Renew talks a lot about partnerships, and it has several - with universities and research centers in addition to corporations and businesses - and this may be one of the keys to its forward-looking perspective. It even has a pilot and research center that encourages future partnerships around innovation, which we really love. And in a further acknowledgment that people are key to its success, there is also much investment in and attention paid to the employees of South Platte Renew, with apprenticeship and internship programs in place and a focus on leadership training and staff retention.

South Platte Renew is ahead of most in terms of going above and beyond just treating wastewater, in their ability to adapt, innovate, and research new efficiencies and technologies. We look forward to seeing this utility continue to break barriers and lead us all into the future with their approach.

From left to right: South Platte Renew Director Pieter Van Ry, Blair Corning, and John Wright (2024)

Thanks to Pieter Van Ry, John Wright, Blair Corning, and all the staff at South Platte Renew for spending an afternoon with the EPIC Water Team and for such a fantastic and informative tour!

For more information, and to take your own 3D tour of the facility, please visit South Platte Renew’s website.