Johnson County's Tomahawk Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility has reached an important milestone on its path to being fully operational. The facility is now beginning the process of treating solids in the wastewater flow and will stop sending them downstream to Kansas City, MO by the end of the first quarter in 2022. The Tomahawk Creek Facility began treating liquid wastewater on Sept. 20. Once the biological systems in the facility mature, it will be ready to start full operations in the spring of 2022. "Wastewater treatment plants are actually biological systems, a lot like human beings," said Susan Pekarek, Johnson County Wastewater General Manager, "And so it takes time to grow the biology that we need in order to be able to do that treatment."