Triple Dog, Havre experiment to save the environment

The local beer maker and the superintendent of the wastewater treatment plant have teamed up on an experimental project they hope will benefit the environment while saving tax payers money, all while complying with incoming tighter standards.

        For about three weeks, Hill County wastewater treatment plant superintendent Drue Newfield has been dumping beer waste - yeast known as slurry - from Triple Dog Brewing Co. into the city's 1,100-gallon wastewater tank to see if the resulting reaction will remove the pollutant phosphorus. The goal is to reduce the use of the chemical Alum, which is how phosphorus is usually removed.

So far, Newfield said, things look promising.

A wastewater treatment plant upgrade was completed in the summer of 2016 at the taxpayer cost of $12 million. The purpose of the upgrade was to comply with then-new standards that reduced the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus allowed back in the ecosystem.

The problem, Newfield said, is that while the new plant is doing a good job for now, the yeast may be safer and cheaper when it comes to phosphorus removal and it may also be the best way to comply with newer incoming standards.

Director of Public Works Dave Peterson said of the $725,000 treatment plant budget, $10,000 is spent on chemicals.

Phosphorus is hazardous to the environment because it grows algae, Newfield said.

"This year they found the algal blooms from all the waste going into the streams gets concentrated downriver. The Ohio River is overcome with algal blooms and it's killing animals," he said, adding that the algal bloom that recently formed in Beaver Creek Park was the result of animal waste in the park, something "they" won't tell you.

Alum is put in to react with phosphorus and create a particle. Once that particle is created, it can be removed by bacteria.

"That's the chemical way of taking out phosphorus. But then, of course, you're adding chemical," Newfield said.

The yeast solution may also come in handy when the new EPA standards are approved, Newfield said.

Paul LaVigne with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality said those new standards are already on their way.

What happened, he said, is the EPA changed their mind after the recent upgrade was completed. Instead of 10 milligrams of nitrogen allowed per liter and 1 milligram per liter of phosphorus, the new allowable limit will be 6 milligrams of nitrogen and .3 milligrams of phosphorus. DEQ has already adopted those standards, LaVigne said, adding it's only a matter of time before they will be approved by the EPA.

The phosphorus limit of .3 mg/L is hard to accomplish, Newfield said.

"You're going to have to add a lot of chemical," he said.

LaVigne applauds what Newfield is doing.

"Drue is very enthusiastic and doing some creative things," LaVigne said.

New standards don't necessarily mean municipalities will have to, again, pour millions of dollars to comply right away. He said DEQ allows up to 17 years, if needed, to give cities time to meet standards. Meanwhile, DEQ will work with communities to help meet the standards.

DEQ Technical Assistant Specialist Pete Boettcher has been working with Newfield, as well as others in the state, to help meet standards.

"What we're trying to do," Boettcher said, "is to take it out biologically to save expense."

Using slurry to get those phosphorus numbers down is something Newfield said he learned about during a seminar about a bacteria called phosphorus accumulating organisms, PAO. If there is enough PAO bacteria in a plant, it can be used to remove the phosphorus. The problem, Newfield said, is that PAOs need a certain kind of food - fermented waste. That's where Michael Garrity's yeast comes in.

Larger treatment plants have huge tanks in which they create fermented waste to be used for wastewater treatment. But Havre's is too small and Newfield said he can't afford to wait weeks, maybe months, for the fermentation to begin. However, the yeast has shown, in its infant experimental stages, that it can expedite fermentation, Newfield said.

"In the few times I've done this, I've seen results where we normally run over a 1 in phosphorus. A couple of times of adding his waste I got it down to .7," he said.

If things continue on this trajectory, Newfield said he thinks this approach can take off.

"Other plants in Montana are going to hear about this and they're going to want to try it," Newfield said.

Boettcher said Havre isn't the only city in Montana using brewery yeast to remove chemicals. Big Fork has been experimenting with the same idea.

Garrity is also excited about the experiment.

"Why aren't we doing this already?" he said. "This makes absolute sense to do. If you can do it organically, why not?"