Rock River Water Reclamation District
Rockford, Illinois
Tom Zolper
Northern Illinois University, Dekalb
The Rock River Water Reclamation District covers nearly 88 square miles
of Winnebago County. The District serves over 250,000 people in the communities
of Rockford, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Roscoe, Cherry Valley, New Milford,
a small part of Rockton and a number of unincorporated areas of Winnebago
County. The District owns and maintains a majority of the wastewater collection
sewers within the service area. The District's 1,100 mile-long network of
buried sewers conveys wastewater from residences, industrial sites and other
businesses to the treatment plant in southeast Rockford. The intern was
placed in the District to offer free pollution prevention assessments and/or
energy efficient audits to industrial users in the District.
Results:
To advertise that the free assessment was available, the intern sent
out two mass mailings. The initial mailing went to 64 significant
industrial users in the District and the second mailing went out to 207
individual
companies.
The student assessed 11 companies and made over 54 separate recommendations
that may result in savings in excess of $150,000.
The intern surveyed companies that were assessed by last summer’s
intern student. Of the 9 companies contacted, 5 of them had implemented
9 recommendations. The actual cost savings had not been determined.
The intern also encouraged various metal working industries in the District
to participate in the Strategic Goals Program (SGP). The program is voluntarily
undertaken by metal working industries that have machining and plating operations
that generate metal scraps and machining oil and coolant and endorsed by
the Illinois EPA and USEPA.
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