GCWW continues to challenge new Northern Kentucky waste water treatment plant under construction near Alexandria, KY

GCWW is committed to providing a plentiful supply of the highest quality drinking water. The first step in this process is source water protection.

Since 2003, the City of Cincinnati, Greater Cincinnati Water Works, and others have opposed a permit to build a wastewater treatment plant in Northern Kentucky near Alexandria.  We agree that the wastewater treatment plant is necessary to protect the environment in the area.  However, the plant will discharge into a tributary creek of the Ohio River upstream of GCWW's drinking water intakes. 

Most of GCWW's customers in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky receive water from the Miller Treatment Plant with intakes just 11 miles down river from the point where the discharge will enter the Ohio River.

According to Deborah Metz, GCWW Assistant Superintendent of Water Quality and Treatment, "We stand firm in our position that having a wastewater treatment plant discharge end up in the Ohio River so close to our drinking water intakes poses a serious - and unnecessary - threat to our source water."

In 2005, USGS conducted a red dye study in the Ohio River which showed that discharge from the wastewater treatment plant would still be concentrated as it reaches the drinking water intakes. GCWW was one of the sponsors of the study.

Additional information:

• Memo to Mayor and Members of City Council, May 2007 (1 page)
• Memo to Mayor and Members of City Council, April 2007 (2 pages)
• Petition for Hearing, September 2006 (13 pages)
• Memo to Mayor and Members of City of Cincinnati Council, October 2006 (2 pages)
• City of Cincinnati Council Resolution No. 0128-2003, November 2003 (2 pages)
• " Water, A Precious Resource" - description of GCWW source water protection programs, April 2006 (3 pages)

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