NORFOLK, Neb. (KTIV) - The City of Norfolk’s Wastewater Treatment Plant experienced a reduction in its biological wastewater treatment capacity, starting on Monday, Sept. 14.
The city states that the biological treatment process includes using microorganisms to reduce the pollutants in the wastewater before it is treated and then discharged. It is believed that the cause of the reduced treatment capacity is toxic influent, which is wastewater that enters a treatment plant with cleaning chemicals, heavy metals or certain organic compounds.
Norfolk Wastewater Treatment Facility(KTIV)
The city states that the reduction in the treatment’s capacity may affect the quality of the wastewater discharged from the facility, which goes into the Elkhorn River in southeast Norfolk.
Norfolk states that a fish kill is anticipated in the general location of the river and that the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission have been informed.
A release by the city states that they have taken immediate action to investigate the reduction and have notified authorities, which include the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy and Environment and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Norfolk also is having treatment plant staff monitor and sample the affected wastewater.
The city of Norfolk had an emergency city council meeting Sept. 15, to address the issue.
There, the Norfolk City Manager Scott Cordes updated the council on what he knows about the situation. He says the reduction in capacity at the plant is thought to have been caused by a build-up of chemicals commonly found in industrial cleaning products.
Those products kill off bio-organisms needed to treat the wastewater.
Cordes says they are still trying to find industries responsible for the build up and have reached out to the wastewater facilities of other communities to replace needed bio-organisms.
“Unlike a flood where your plant goes completely offline and there’s just a bypass, that didn’t occur. We lost the biological treatment component. The mechanical treatment component is still there,” said Steven Rames, Norfolk’s Public Works Director and City Engineer.
Norfolk city council emergency meeting, Sept. 15, 2026.(KTIV)
Jerry Nordeen, a former Norfolk City Council member, was one of several people who came out to ask questions and voice their concerns.
“I just hope that our sewage treatment plant can be brought back up to speed so that all the wastewater that this city generates runs through the plant and comes out the other side clean,” said Nordeen.
Cordes said the city isn’t asking residents to do anything differently.
Norfolk officials state that more information will be provided as it becomes available and that the public should avoid contact with water in the Elkhorn River downstream of the City’s outfall to the river.
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