Prineville built a 120-acre wetland instead of a new wastewater plant; the Oregon system cost $7.7 million and saved the city $54 million versus conventional treatment

Prineville, Oregon, is a high-desert town of roughly 11,000 people, tucked into a valley near the Ochoco National Forest. Population growth began outpacing the town's wastewater capacity around 2004 and 2005, and that pressure only grew when Facebook opened its first Prineville data center in April 2011, with Apple following later, according to the USDA Rural Development news release. The town's existing wastewater facility, constructed back in 1960 for a town of only 3,000 people, couldn't keep up. According to the EPA's Clean Water State Revolving Fund case study on this project, constructing a conventional plant would have cost the city $62 million. Instead, the town built a wetland.

Why a swamp made more sense than a treatment plant