The city’s J.D. Phillips Water Reclamation Facility, Colorado Springs’ second wastewater treatment plant, began discharging treated sewage into Monument Creek on Monday.The plant, south of Garden of the Gods Road on Mark Dabling Road, started operations last summer. Since then, it’s pumped sewage through an interceptor line to the city’s 69-year-old Las Vegas Wastewater Treatment Plant, where it was treated to meet water quality standards.Colorado Springs Utilities officials delayed discharging from the Phillips plant into the creek to allow time for biological processes upon which sewage treatment is predicated to fully develop, which takes months, Utilities spokesman Steve Berry said.Also, crews wanted to monitor the plant to be sure everything worked properly before discharging into the creek, he said.Repeated sewage spills into creeks in past years have been a regulatory nightmare, netting the city record fines from state agencies. Discharges also are a sore spot with Pueblo, where officials will have a say in how Utilities builds a water pipeline from Pueblo Reservoir.The plant, named for a former Utilities official, was needed because of growth. Its capacity is 20 million gallons a day; it also can reclaim 11 million gallons a day for nonpotable use at surrounding parks and golf courses and on Colorado College’s grounds.Rather than building a third plant, the city plans to modify and expand the Las Vegas plant in four to seven years.