One major concern that people have about landfills is the possibility of water contamination. Seneca Landfill's onsite water treatment plant takes proactive state-of-the-art measures to ensure that western Pennsylvania's water remains clean and uncontaminated.
Seneca Landfill's cutting edge water treatment plant has the capacity to store millions of gallons of water and process up to 110,000 gallons per day.
When landfill cells are excavated, they are lined with clay and synthetic liners. This ensures that no landfill materials, including liquids, leak through the bottom of the landfill and into the earth or water table. However, while the cell is uncapped, rainwater may come into contact with waste from the landfill and become contaminated. This contaminated water is called leachate and is directed to our wastewater treatment plant.
All contaminated water called leachate is collected from the landfill through a series of collection pipes and transmitted to the wastewater treatment plant for processing. The treatment plant has over 4 million gallons of storage capacity where equalization, pretreatment, and aeration take place before entering the plant. The leachate enters the plant for pH adjustment, dropping of metals, aerobic biological treatment, filtration, and disinfection before being discharged according to EPA standards. Solids generated from the treatment process are conditioned, thickened, and dewatered through our filter press as depicted in the photo. The leachate throughout this process is kept warm with the heat from our CHP Plant to facilitate the treatment process.
The result is fresh, clean water that can be safely put back into the water system. Seneca Landfill's water treatment facility is state of the art and we are even able to treat water from other sources.