Greensboro, NC
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The South Buffalo Creek Water Reclamation Facility served the southern half of Greensboro from 1928 to 1984. Greensboro's water reclamation history began with the construction of this four-million-gallon-per-day (MGD) facility in 1928. Located in a sparsely populated area on the City's southeastern edge, it provided secondary treatment for municipal sewage and industrial waste before discharging into South Buffalo Creek. The facility was expanded to eight MGD in 1956 to accommodate increased needs, and modifications made in 1974 raised its capacity to 12 MGD. It was retired in 1984 when the T.Z. Osborne Water Reclamation Facility began operations.
The North Buffalo Creek Water Reclamation Facility served the northern half of Greensboro from 1938 to 2017. Originally built in 1938 to provide secondary treatment for up to eight million gallons of municipal sewage and industrial waste per day, the facility was expanded in 1959 to handle 18 MGD. In 1980, the North Buffalo Creek Facility was voluntarily downgraded to 16 MGD to produce an effluent with lower ammonia-nitrogen content. The North Buffalo Creek Facility was later decommissioned and converted to a transfer pump station in 2017.
The T.Z. Osborne Water Reclamation Facility opened in 1984 with a capacity of 20 MGD and is currently Greensboro's sole water treatment facility. In 2001, T.Z. Osborne was expanded to treat 30 MGD and changed to a single-stage aeration system, with the capability for future biological nutrient removal. Sand filters were installed along with two new standby power generators. In 2003, T.Z. Osborne grew to a capacity of 40 MGD. T.Z. Osborne was expanded to 56 MGD in 2021 through a $120 million upgrade and expansion project, completed to meet new Total Nitrogen annual mass discharge limits.