Through the incineration process, the facility consumes 600,000 gallons of water every day for steam production, cooling, ash quenching and other uses. The source for this water is effluent from the Elizabethtown Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant that was previously discharged directly into the Susquehanna River. Two ponds at the resource recovery facility each store 1.25 million gallons of treated water for use during peak demand periods and for fire protection. The plant itself is a zero-discharge facility, which means that no wastewater leaves the property. Instead, the wastewater is treated on site and recycled within the system.
Aqueous ammonia is injected into the furnace to control nitrogen oxide emissions.
After leaving the boiler, these gases pass into a semi-dry scrubber, where they are injected with a lime slurry to neutralize the acid gases. Next, the gases enter a fabric filter baghouse for removal of particulate matter. Conveyors transport the combined ash to the ash residue building, where it passes through a ferrous metal recovery system. The Authority sells the ferrous material to a recycling facility and hauls the remaining ash to the landfill.