Rifle—Three billion gallons of sewage. It’s a disgusting image but it’s a relief not a drop found it’s way into the Colorado River from the city of Rifle since 2009. The totalizer, at Rifle’s Wastewater Reclamation Facility just rolled past the three billion gallon mark and the city is touting the milestone with some startling facts and figures to put it all in perspective. Over the past decade, the plant has treated on average, close to 900,000 gallons of sewage per day. Broken down, that amounts to over 6.8 million pounds of solids and trash, close to 6.2 million pounds of organics and 438 tons of nitrogen. Wastewater Treatment Supervisor Jared Emmert says, “we’ve come a long way from pitching chamber pots out of windows onto the streets below.”
