F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center

F. Wayne Hill Tour Video

Take a video tour of the F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center

The F. Wayne Hill Water Resources Center (WRC) is an award-winning advanced wastewater treatment facility located in Buford. The water it cleans and returns to the environment is some of the highest quality effluent (cleaned wastewater) in the United States. The F. Wayne Hill WRC is also a worldwide model for wastewater treatment, providing approximately 100 tours a year for visitors from around the world.

Because the F. Wayne Hill facility returns water to Lake Lanier, it meets or exceeds some of the most stringent effluent quality limits in the nation. The ozone, granular activated carbon, and membrane treatment processes at F. Wayne Hill go beyond typical wastewater treatment and are on the cutting edge of wastewater purification technology. These processes remove pollutants so well that the water returns to nature in many ways cleaner than when it was first drawn into our supply. Since beginning service in 2000, the F. Wayne Hill WRC has never had a water quality violation. The F. Wayne Hill WRC was also granted a Platinum 15 Peak Performance Award in recognition of 15 years of complete and consistent National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit compliance by the National Association of Clean Water Agencies.

Two other parts of the treatment process—nutrient recovery and energy recovery—make the F. Wayne Hill WRC an innovative, forward-looking community asset that will pay dividends to Gwinnett County for generations to come.

Nutrient Recover

Using Ostara Nutrient Recovery technology, this facility recovers phosphorus from wastewater and turns it into a slow-release fertilizer.

F. Wayne Hill’s nutrient recovery facility, a 2018 National Association of Counties Achievement Award winner, produces more than a ton of fertilizer per day. With experts predicting a world shortage of phosphorous in the future, this type of resource recovery helps the facility meet its extraordinarily low limit on phosphorus discharge required by our Clean Water Act permit.

The design of the F. Wayne Hill WRC enables operators to recover energy from treatment byproducts to supplement power needs at the plant. This visionary process captures both heat and energy from methane gas, which has reduced energy costs by more than 20 percent and minimized the plant’s carbon footprint.