Lagoon systems: wastewater treatment plants in Virginia
44 plants · 20% of the state · 67 MGD reported by 40 plants
Klarifi identifies 44 publicly owned wastewater treatment plants with lagoon systems in Virginia, 20% of the 224 plants in the state (67 MGD reported by 40 plants). The largest is Noman M Cole Jr Pollution Control Plant in Lorton at 34.89 MGD.
Lagoon systems treat wastewater in large earthen ponds over weeks of retention time, with or without mechanical aeration. They serve thousands of small towns because they are cheap to run, but they struggle with ammonia and nutrient limits, fill with sludge over decades and are the plants most often converted or upgraded when a permit is renewed.
The largest lagoons in Virginia
| # | Facility | City | Avg flow (MGD) | NPDES permit | Expires | Violations (3y) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Noman M Cole Jr Pollution Control Plant | Lorton | 34.89 | VAL025364 | Dec 2030 | 0 |
| 2 | Falling Creek Sewage Treatment Plant Chesterfied County Board | Richmond | 9.61 | VAL024996 | Dec 2030 | 2 |
| 3 | City Of Danville Northside WWTP | Danville | 4.7 | VAL060593 | Dec 2030 | 5 |
| 4 | Martinsville STP | Ridgeway | 3.75 | VAL025305 | Dec 2030 | 26 |
| 5 | Culpeper Wastewater Treatment Plant | Culpeper | 3.12 | VAL061590 | Dec 2030 | 0 |
| 6 | Christiansburg Town Of | Christiansburg | 2.95 | VAL061751 | Dec 2030 | 1 |
| 7 | Altavista Town - Wastewater Treatment Plant | Altavista | 2 | VA0020451 | May 2031 | 0 |
| 8 | Big Stone Gap Regional WWTP | Big Stone Gap | 1.89 | VAL020940 | Dec 2030 | 7 |
| 9 | Lawrenceville STP | Lawrenceville | 0.74 | VA0020354 | Aug 2030 | 0 |
| 10 | Parham Landing WWTP | West Point | 0.53 | VA0088331 | Sep 2030 | 2 |
Contacts and project signals for every plant on this list
Klarifi adds verified decision-maker contacts, permit limits, discharge monitoring data and the capital projects planned in each city, filterable by technology, size and compliance record.
Other technologies in Virginia
Lagoon systems in other states
Lagoon systems in Virginia: questions
Sources and methodology
Flow, permit and violation figures come from the EPA's ICIS-NPDES discharge monitoring records. Population served comes from the Clean Watersheds Needs Survey 2022. Treatment structures are identified by Klarifi's review of aerial imagery, and capital improvement projects are extracted from published municipal budget documents. Violations are counted over the last three years of monitoring reports.
Data refreshed October 26, 2026.
Wastewater terms: WWTP · POTW · Biosolids · Oxidation ditch · Anaerobic digester · all terms