The advisory issued following a Friday-night power outage at the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority’s wastewater treatment facility has been lifted, and recreational users may once again return to area waterways.

During that time, the plant’s wet well reached capacity, which resulted in an estimated 20-million-gallon discharge in the river. Out of an abundance of caution, ALCOSAN advised the public to avoid contact with local waterways for 48 hours while participating in recreational activities.

That window ended Sunday evening. ALCOSAN is continuing to monitor their systems to ensure safe and reliable operations. 

“On an annual basis, ALCOSAN’s plant treats about 70 billion gallons of wastewater,” said Doug Jackson, ALCOSAN’s Director of Operations and Maintenance and Deputy Executive Director. 

ALCOSAN’s maximum capacity currently sits at 295 million gallons a day (MGD), an increase from 250 MGD last year due to ongoing plant expansion, which is part of ALCOSAN’s Clean Water Plan.

“We’re hoping that by October of this year, our plant capacity is going to bump from 295 MGD to 480 MGD. That will do an immense job in containing a lot of summer overflow events, in addition to non-typical events like this one.” 

ALCOSAN’s Clean Water Plan represents a historic investment in regional water infrastructure. The plan includes underground tunnels for each river, in addition to regionalization efforts and plant expansion. 

You can read the original advisory here.