Great Beer and Clean Water
 | Author:
Nancy Marks, Reporter
Vic Sample: MT43 News Treasurer |
Great Beer and Clean Water
Nancy Marks
Reporter
David Sigler bubbles over with pride as he shows off his sewage treatment plant. The way he tells it, the system is a technological marvel. Only an engineer could love a sewage system. Sigler happens to be both a structural engineer and a brewer of really good beer. As everybody knows, beer and wastewater go together.
The sewage plant is near the Bridger Brewing Company’s brewery and pub fronting on Interstate Highway 90 near Three Forks. The sewer system is owned by Headwaters Utility Association, (HUA) now a non-profit organization. Sigler is HUA president. He’s also a co-founder of Bridger Brewing Co. and he heads an engineering consulting firm in Bozeman.
The sewage treatment plant uses what is known as a Membrane BioReactor (MBR) system. More about that later.
The HUA’s big client is the brewery, which uses a lot of water in the brewing process. The sewage system is also hooked up to the state Department of Transportation’s newly built but yet-to-open highway rest area just north of the Interstate 90 intersection with U.S. Highway 287. That interchange is home to the Wheat Montana Bakery, Steer In Trailer Sales, and a handful of other businesses. On the south side of the interchange is a Town Pump convenience store and truck stop. The nearby hills are filling up with subdivisions and hundreds of upscale homes, habitat, it seems, mostly for comfortably retired folks.
The upshot is that the interchange is becoming a business hub with great potential for growth. And that’s just fine with Sigler because the MBR wastewater treatment system is modular and can be scaled up to serve area businesses in the district, paying customers for HUA. The system has been widely adopted in municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants across the nation. In Montana, they include systems used at Craig and Wolf Creek and one at Flathead Lake.
According to a HUA press release, the MBR system surpasses conventional treatment methods by turning wastewater into water that, although not fit for human consumption, is usable for irrigation, toilets and fire suppression systems. The Headwaters Utility Association is thus set to save tens of thousands of gallons of potable water per day. Sludge generated by the system is processed into compost.
Article Images
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PhotoCredit: Photo Credits: Nancy Marks
Image 1 Caption: Headwaters Utility Association President David Sigler, President of Headwaters Utility Association stands beside state-of-the art Pioneer Wastewater Treatment Plant
Photo Credits: Nancy Marks
Image 2 Caption: Sludge moves from the outside holding unit to a small building which houses four holding tanks. Sludge is oxygenated, then moved through anaerobic processes which break down the waste.
Photo Credits: Nancy Marks
Image 3 Caption: Tanks in Wastewater Treatment Plant
Photo Credits: Nancy Marks
Image 4 Caption: Sigler displays the almost clear, nonpotable water as the final product of the MBR system.
Photo Credits: Nancy Marks
