History of the West Hickman Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

Lexington's West Hickman Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant is on a 269 acre site located south of Fayette County. The Plant began operations in 1972 with a Kraus modification of the activated sludge process followed by 20 acres of polishing lagoons. The Plant had a capacity of 5 MGD and provided service for 50,000 south Lexington residents.

With the south Lexington's population expected to exceed 150,000 by the year 2000, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government became convinced that the West Hickman WWTP required a major upgrading and expansion.

In January 1982, construction began to increase the design capacity of the plant to 16.8 mgd with a peak capacity of 32.0 MGD.

In 1992 Lexington completed another expansion of the West Hickman WWTP which increased capacity of the plant to 22.3 MGD and provided a peak hydraulic capacity of 52 MGD. This latest expansion also provided fine screens, raw sewage screw pumps, a centrifuge for thickening sludge, a computer monitoring system and dechlorination facilities. In 2001, Lexington completed yet another upgrade and expansion of the West Hickman WWTP which increased the capacity.

The upgraded West Hickman Wastewater Treatment Plant is classified as a two-staged activated sludge nitrification system which treats billions of gallons of wastewater annually. The facility removes over 90 percent of the incoming pollutants as measured by 5-day carbonaceous biochemcial oxygen demand, total suspended solids and ammonia nitrogen.