Environmentally Responsible Waste System
and Dedicated Staff Protect Bear Run

Sewage happens, and it’s easy to think of it as merely waste. But organic compounds and other byproducts in waste are actually essential to ecosystems and provide vital nutrients for soil, plants and animals through natural recycling. Through modern technology, waste from human communities can be recycled without harming streams and rivers. At Fallingwater, a Zenon system, designed for zero discharge and installed in September 2003, has already recycled more than 875,000 gallons of wastewater.

The model closed-loop system includes new flush toilets at the visitors’ pavilion, nine pump stations around the site, a half-acre of subsurface drip irrigation, a surface drip irrigation site at Fallingwater’s cutting garden, and reclaimed water connections for other restrooms on site. WPC installed more than 5,500 feet of reclaimed water line and laid nearly three miles of tubing for drip irrigation.

The treatment plant itself maintains a low profile, surrounded by trees just north of the Fallingwater entrance. Inside, state of the art equipment recycles the wastewater through five different processes: suspended growth biological treatment; microfiltration; activated carbon adsorption; ultraviolet disinfection; and aerobic digestion. Fallingwater staff monitors the system daily and conducts monthly tests to ensure that the system operates within EPA standards. Due to the staff’s constant vigilance and technology that benefits the environment, Fallingwater’s wastewater system not only protects the Bear Run Nature Reserve, but enhances it as well.

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