Havre recognizes treatment plant workers for earning national award

At the Havre City Council meeting Tuesday, Public Works Director Dave Peterson recognized the wastewater treatment facility employees for innovative improvements made to the Havre Wastewater Treatment Plant that led to the city receiving a national award.

"The city of Havre received recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency for our Wastewater Treatment Plant," Peterson said. "It was given to the city, but I wanted to give a little recognition to our Wastewater Treatment Plant employees because they are the ones that came up with the idea, they are the ones that implemented the idea and, technically, they are the ones that received the award for the city of Havre."

Peterson said the city did an upgrade to the Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2015 which included substantial aeration, changing the facility from chemicals, such as chlorine, to ultra violet, which was a huge savings to the city. Peterson said that at the time he spoke with Mayor Tim Solomon and City Clerk and Financial Director Doug Kaercher and believed these changes would meet the requirements of the EPA, and at the time it did. But after time some things at the plant came up which required the city to add additional chemicals to meet EPA standards.

But in 2017, Wastewater Treatment Plant Superintendent Drue Newfield started a partnership with Havre's Triple Dog Brewing Co. to use brewery waste, fermented organics such as barley, in the treatment facility rather than using chemicals, Peterson said. Triple Dog Brewing also received an EcoStar award from Montana State University Extension for its contribution to the project.

Newfield had the idea after attending a workshop about wastewater treatment, Peterson added.

Peterson said that Newfield has been with the city for 33 years, starting off as an operator and moved up the ranks to become superintendent. He added that Newfield is a hard worker and has a good team at the facility.

"It's pretty good that we work with the community and get things done and make things happen," Peterson said.

Newfield told the council the city of Havre has been a great place to work and the Wastewater Treatment Plant has a wide range of jobs for people of all educational levels, and through the diverse skills of the employees at the facility the plant has been able to make great improvements.

"We have a very good team at the wastewater plant in Havre," he said. 

He added that, due to upcoming nutrient limits, the city upgraded the plant a few years ago. The upgrade included a zone specific for phosphorus removal and a plan of adding alum, a chemical precipitate used to extract phosphorus from the process. He said that alum is expensive, "and, at the end of the day, it's another chemical going into the river."

The trouble with that is nutrient limits may be lower than anticipated, Newfield said. Phosphorus removal requires a healthy amount of volatile fatty acids, also known as VFAs, in incoming raw wastewater.

"Well, it turns out that Havre's raw wastewater is low in these VFAs and could cost taxpayers another upgrade to achieve EPA standards," Newfield said. "We realized that it was going to be difficult to meet the upcoming limits due to the low amount of VFAs."

He said he spoke with Triple Dog Brewing owner Michael Garrity about experimenting with brewery waste because the fermented organics in the brewery waste could work as a natural VFA.

"He was excited and willing to give us as much as we wanted," Newfield said.

He added that he learned about possibly using brewery waste from a seminar organized by the Montana Environmental Training Center about biological nutrient removal. The fermented barley provides VFAs to bacteria that uptake phosphorus, he said.

"This turned out to be very good for our wastewater plant," Newfield said, adding that they are still observing a number of other benefits brewery waste has on the wastewater facility.

"We are all very confident that the addition of barley to our facility will help us to meet the upcoming nutrient limits," he said. "It seems that the barley has had the most significant impact on our phosphorus removal.

"... We are constantly learning and trying new things to produce the best effluent we can," Newfield added. "Although our incoming wastewater is low in VFAs, the upgrade as a whole has provided us with so many different ways of running the plant. All of the options provide us with the opportunity to learn and try different ideas to optimize our wastewater process. We really feel like this is one of the best wastewater plants in the state."

Solomon said he is very proud of the work the wastewater treatment facility employees have done and is impressed with what they have been able to accomplish. 

City Council voted and passed an ordinance changing the hiring qualifications for police officers on final reading.

Hutchins said the change in the ordinance is similar to the change in the ordinance for the Havre Fire Department, removing the age restriction for applicants and refers to Montana Code Annotated. The change was also rewritten to include a requirement for officers to be registered city voters, which requires officers to live within city limits, unless an exception is approved by the city and the chief of police. He added that the addition is to allow officers to quickly respond in case of emergencies if needed.

In other actions, the council passed sponsoring a planning grant for The Clear Creek Court sanitary sewer system.

Peterson said that Clear Creek Court has recently been sold to Neighbor Works, which is made up of the residents of the trailer court. He added that the residents of Clear Creek Court need to hire an engineer to evaluate the neighborhood's sanitary sewer system, which needs to be replaced. 

The residents of Clear Creek Court have been having some issues with the sewer system and are looking for the city to be a sponsor in a planning grant through the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and Renewable Resource Grant and Loan Program, he said. He added that once the planning process is completed, the residents will look for funding sources to replace the sewer system.

"This gets them one step closer to getting that done," Peterson said, adding that the city is able to sponsor this because Clear Creek is a non-profit community group.

He said sponsoring the planning grant is at no cost to the city and, moving forward, the city will most likely not be involved with Clear Creek looking for other funding sources.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Scout BSA Troop 1438 member Jackson Siemens asked the council to consider making a proclamation declaring the week of Feb. 9 as National Scouts BSA week.

Solomon said that the council will consider the proclamation at the next City Council meeting Feb. 3.