Facility tours

For students, teachers, and others who would like to visit, a free tour of any of WEP's five largest wastewater treatment facilities provides a unique opportunity to learn about wastewater treatment—a vital yet little known environmental field involving principles of biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics.

A tour also offers a casual atmosphere where you can ask questions and learn about WEP, its mission, its facilities, and the outstanding people who serve our community.

Request a tour of one of Onondaga County's wastewater treatment plants.

Please note: Tours, unless otherwise requested, involve a significant amount of walking and climbing stairs. Also, as long as weather conditions are favorable, most of the tour will take place outdoors (even in winter). Be sure to dress accordingly. Please no high heel shoes or sandals.

Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant

The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant (Metro) provides high quality treatment for 270,000 people and many industrial and commercial customers in the City of Syracuse and some areas outside the city in Onondaga County.

Metro treats an average of 84 million gallons per day. Full secondary and tertiary treatment can be provided for up to 126 million gallons per day. Metro has a total hydraulic capacity of 240 million gallons per day during wet-weather events such as rainstorms.

Take a virtual tour of the Metro plant.
Click here for the Metro tour guide.

Baldwinsville-Seneca Knolls

Area served: Baldwinsville, Radisson, Seneca Knolls, Interstate Island industrial area, and River Mall.

Treatment: Flexible design allows for activated sludge operation in either single- or two-stage mode. Current mode is single stage with the second stage used for polishing.

Pure oxygen is generated onsite and used in the first-stage aeration basins and aerobic digester. Total phosphorus is removed on a year-round basis, while disinfection and nitrification are employed seasonally according to permit.

Learn more of the Baldwinsville-Seneca Knolls plant.

Brewerton

Area served: Brewerton and Town of Cicero (Lakeshore from Brewerton to Bridgeport).

Treatment: Secondary treatment using contact stabilization modification of the of activated sludge process. Design volume = 3.0 MGD (peak = 7.5 MGD). Fine bubble diffusers are used for the aeration system. Total phosphorus is removed year-round.

Read about the Brewerton plant.

Meadowbrook-Limestone

Area served: Portions of Syracuse, Village of Manlius, Village of Fayetteville, and towns of Manlius and Dewitt.

Treatment: Conventional activated sludge with phosphorus removal and nitrification. Anoxic zones added at head end of each aeration tank in 1994 for filament control to improve settling in final clarifiers.

Find out more about the Meadowbrook-Limestone plant.

Oak Orchard

Area served: Cicero, Clay, and North Syracuse.

Treatment: Unox pure oxygen activated sludge plant. Pure oxygen aeration generated on-site by pressure swing adsorption. Plant capacity: design = 10 MGD (peak = 24 MGD).

See more information about Oak Orchard.