ORCE Wastewater Treatment Plant, Orce, Andalucía, Spain

The ORCE wastewater treatment plant is located in Orce, a municipality in the Comarca de Huéscar, Granada, Andalucía, Spain. Designed to serve a population of 1,532, the plant provided secondary treatment before its closure. The facility's designed capacity was 2,300 cubic meters per day, with a discharge volume of 277.67 cubic meters per day. As a secondary treatment plant in Spain, ORCE operated under the European Union's Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC), which requires secondary treatment for agglomerations of this size. The plant's closure may reflect infrastructure upgrades or consolidation in the region. The plant's treated effluent was discharged into the local watershed, which ultimately drains into the Mediterranean Sea via the Guadiana Menor River system. The area is part of the Guadalquivir basin, supporting agricultural and ecological systems in semi-arid southeastern Spain.

The ORCE plant discharged into the Guadiana Menor River, a tributary of the Guadalquivir River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Cádiz. The watershed supports diverse aquatic life and is important for irrigation in the region. The plant's secondary treatment helped protect downstream water quality in this ecologically sensitive semi-arid area.