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Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago

About the Plant

  • 3 employees
  • 5 buildings on 21.5 acres
  • In operation since November, 1961

Receiving Stream

  • Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal

Treatment Volume

  • 2.3 million gallons/day (avg.)
  • 4 million gallons/day (max.)

Lemont WRP Fact Sheet

Schedule a Tour

Available:
Wednesdays, 10 a.m.
Duration:
1 hour
Link to Form

The Lemont Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) is one of seven wastewater treatment facilities owned and operated by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD). The MWRD is the wastewater treatment and stormwater management agency for the City of Chicago and 125 Cook County communities. We work every day to mitigate flooding and convert wastewater into valuable resources like clean water, phosphorus, biosolids and natural gas. 

Aerial view of a water reclamation plant with various tanks of water and a canal in the foreground

If you live within our service area, the water that goes down your toilet, sinks and drains eventually comes to us to be cleaned. We treat wastewater from homes and businesses throughout our 883-square-mile service area in addition to stormwater from some communities. All of this wastewater and stormwater flows through local sewers into our interceptors before flowing to WRPs where we clean the water and recover resources using a combination of physical, biological, and sometimes chemical, treatment processes. 

The MWRD provides this service for over 5 million people. Nearly 450 billion gallons of wastewater is treated by our seven facilities every year. 

The Lemont WRP is the smallest of the seven MWRD facilities but provides the invaluable service of wasetwater treatment for nearly 20,000 residents in the Village of Lemont. The Lemont WRP was placed in service in 1961 and cleans an average of 2 million gallons of wastewater per day and has the capacity to treat 4 million gallons per day.