Click here to view a presentation on the RVSA plant upgrades and improvements.

Wastewater treatment facilities provide essential services to the communities they serve by treating polluted water and returning clean, safe water to the environment. The Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority (RVSA) was formed in 1951 to treat wastewater from municipalities in Central New Jersey. These municipalities currently include: Member Municipalities of Clark, Cranford, Garwood, Kenilworth, Mountainside, Rahway, Roselle Park, Scotch Plains, Springfield, Westfield, and Woodbridge and User Municipalities of Winfield Park, portions of Fanwood and Linden.

The RVSA is run as an autonomous agency that owns and operates a 40 million-gallon-per-day (MGD) wastewater treatment facility located in Rahway, New Jersey. The plant has primary, secondary and sludge treatment processes and serves more than 300,000 residents and 3,500 industrial and commercial customers within a 48.85 square-mile area. The RVSA is currently implementing a plant expansion and upgrades that will improve service and promote a cleaner environment.

How is wastewater currently treated at the RVSA?

When wastewater enters the treatment plant, it goes through a system that removes debris and grit. It then flows through three settling tanks for primary treatment. Wastewater that has gone through primary treatment is pumped into the secondary system, which contains two aeration tanks and four secondary clarifiers. Following secondary treatment, the wastewater, or effluent, is disinfected by adding sodium hypochlorite and is then released into the Arthur Kill.

The waste by-products that remain are sent to the RVSA sludge handling and processing facilities. RVSA operates three gravity thickener tanks, a gravity belt thickener facility, three anaerobic digestion tanks and four sludge storage tanks. The sludge dewatering facility processes wet sludge into a drier product, which is then removed by contractors for beneficial reuse, including land reclamation and agricultural application.

Why are the plant expansion and upgrades necessary?

New Jersey’s growing population and new environmental regulations have increased the demand for wastewater treatment services. Currently, the maximum peak flow that the RVSA facilities can accommodate is 63 MGD. Due to limited trunk sewer and wet weather treatment plant capacities, the RVSA has Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) that are activated during extended rainfalls when this peak flow is exceeded. These CSOs are necessary to relieve street flooding and water back-up into basements within the tributary municipalities.

In 1997, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) revised the RVSA’s Discharge Permit.  The revisions modified the operation of Outfalls 003 and 004 as CSOs, which had been in use as permitted Outfalls for many years during heavy rainfalls.

The RVSA has worked with the NJDEP to develop a Comprehensive Strategic Plan (CSP) for addressing the NJDEP’s concerns. Full realization of the CSP includes implementing a Capital Improvement Program (CIP) and the following:

• Significantly increase the plant’s capacity from  63 MGD to accommodate wet weather flows of up to 105 MGD, by providing increased influent and  effluent capabilities.
• Adding sand filters, a disinfection system and other primary treatment facility enhancements to eliminate possible future violations of the permit’s effluent limits.
• Closing, first temporarily then permanently, Outfalls 003 and 004 in Rahway, New Jersey.
• Construct a gravity relief sewer to bring the excess wet weather flow from Outfall 004 to the treatment plant.

The CSP is an eight-year plan to design and construct plant upgrades and enhancements that will close the CSOs, eliminate any effluent violations and allow the plant to treat significantly greater flows from the Member Municipalities and commercial customers. Ultimately, the plant’s upgrades and expansion will increase the RVSA’s daily and maximum capacities of water treated, providing for cleaner effluent and reducing environmental pollution.

What are the benefits of the plant expansion and upgrades?

By implementing the CSP, the RVSA will be compliant with current State requirements and achieve greater operating and cost efficiencies over time. This will enable the RVSA to continue to maintain reasonable service area rates – which are among the lowest in the State.

The RVSA upgrades also include adding filters and ultraviolet disinfection facilities. This will improve the effluent quality of water treated within the plant and contribute to a cleaner environment.

The upgrades will enable the RVSA to eliminate two of the untreated CSO discharge points to the Rahway River (Outfalls 003 and 004). Also, the plant expansion and upgrades will enable the RVSA to remove 1.4 million pounds per year of Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and 1.2 million pounds per year of Biochemical Oxygen Demands (BOD).

In addition to a cleaner environment, the RVSA will realize savings and self-sufficiency/independence from its electric utility provider by constructing and operating a power generating/sludge volume reduction facility.  Initially, the savings of electricity and sludge disposal costs will amount to approximately $1.2 million a year.

What will change at the RVSA as a result of the plant expansion?

Approximately 70 percent of the CIP work is to include enhancements to improve treatment capabilities and effluent quality, as well as to increase the hydraulic capacity required as a result of the closures of CSOs 003 and 004. About 20 percent of the CIP work will be for the construction of a new cogeneration/sludge drying facility that will generate electricity to operate the entire expanded facility, as well as to reduce the volume of sludge disposed of offsite. The sludge volume reduction will be accomplished by utilizing waste heat from the engine generators to dry the sludge by evaporating excess water. The remaining CIP work to be performed includes planned major overhauls and operational efficiency improvements to existing equipment.

Once these improvements are completed, the RVSA will be able to better serve its community members and commercial customers. This improved service and compliance with environmental regulations will also mean a capital investment and an increase in costs. Despite these increased costs to taxpayers, the RVSA’s projected treatment cost will continue to be among one of the lowest in the State. This will allow the RVSA to maintain reasonable service area rates for the Member Municipalities while still protecting the environment.