The Stickney 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. 

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 Stickney WRP is one of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in the world. The Stickney WRP serves residents in the central part of Chicago as well as 46 other communities within a 260-square-mile-area. The Stickney WRP consists of two plants; the original West Side Plant which was placed in service in 1930 and the Southwest Plant which was placed in service in 1939. The Stickney WRP currently serves over 2.2 million people and cleans an average of 700 million gallons of wastewater per day and has the capacity to treat 1.4 billion gallons per day.

How Chicago Cleans 1.4 Billion Gallons Of Wastewater Every Day | Deep Cleaned | Insider