A water treatment plant the Town of Lexington has been working to decommission since 2020 — one that sent untreated wastewater flowing into a local creek for 11 days earlier this year — recently reached a new milestone in its shutdown process.

“The Town of Lexington has completed the temporary outfall connection for the Watergate Wastewater Treatment Plant, ending the discharge of 290-thousand gallons per day of treated wastewater into 14 Mile Creek and ultimately the Lower Saluda River,” the town announced July 24. “This eliminates the greatest environmental risk from the plant, thereby protecting our natural resources and the Lower Saluda.”

The town has been working to decommission the Watergate since acquiring it in December 2020 from Blue Granite, which had been at odds with the town over environmental concerns at the company's local treatment facilities. 

Due to an aeration issue, the plant sent untreated wastewater into 14 Mile Creek between March 9 and 20 this spring.

Now, Lexington moves on in the process to decommission the plant.

“This effectively completes the decades long process of regionalizing wastewater treatment in the Town’s management area, utilizing the state of the art joint facility on the Congaree with our partners at the Joint Municipal Water and Sewer Commission and the City of Cayce,” the town notes in a release about finishing the temporary outfall connection. “The Watergate Plant had been identified for regionalization by [the state Department of Health and Environmental Control] for many years, and since the Town acquired it from Blue Granite Water Company in 2020, we have been actively planning for its decommissioning.

“The next step is for the Town to build the new, permanent infrastructure to replace the temporary tie-in and fully decommission the plant and upgrade numerous pump stations in the Watergate Service Area,” the release adds.

According to the town, the $18 million project to decommission Watergate is funded in part by a $10 million grant allocated by the state through the American Rescue Plan.

Asked about the plant, Lexington Mayor Steve MacDougall emphasized the importance of making sure failures at the plant will no longer impact the local environment.

“We no longer flow any outfall to 14 Mile Creek. It was possibly polluting the creek,” he said, noting that the goal of buying the plant and shutting it down was to remove this possibility. “It's a great thing because this community is no longer impacting our streams, rivers and lakes.”

Neither the mayor nor the town provided a timeline as to when the rest of the decommissioning work might be completed.

“We're still mapping it out and the way it's gonna go,” MacDougall said. “We have a pump station ... we have to bring up to speed and another one we have to completely build. We just started that process. So as soon as we get those two in place, we can run the pipe, tie everything in and it is completely shut down.”