By Tere Dunlap

tdunlap@themonroetimes.com

MONROE -- Legal challenges to Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) issuance of water pollution discharge permits to two Green County dairy processing facilities, Grande Cheese and Protient, Inc., are still active.

Betsy Lawton, staff attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) in Madison, said she could not give any specifics about the cases begun in August 2006 by Wisconsin Environmental Law Advocates, but said most MEA challenges are to raise DNR standards on limits facilities can discharge into streams and other waterways.

The new wastewater treatment plant owned and operated by the Grande Cheese plant in Juda has been in operation for over six months. The company's objective for building and controlling its own wastewater treatment facility was to be able to control for growth and environmental obligations.

When Grande bought the plant, it shared a wastewater treatment plant with Wisconsin Whey, which was already near its maximum capacity.

Mike Nelson, vice president of operations for Grande, explained that Grande's wastewater treatment facility has an active sludge oxidation ditch system, which uses a bio-phosphate (Bio-P) removal process.

In the Bio-P process, specific bacteria accumulate large quantities of phosphorus in their cells. The bio-mass, with the bacteria, is separated from the treated water (effluent), which can then be released into the streams. The remaining solids have a high fertilizing value.

Nelson said their wastewater treatment plant got its bacteria from the Beloit public utilities. Once proper levels were obtained, the plant began on June 20, 2007, discharging into Juda Branch Creek. Nelson would not say how much effluent the Grande plant releases.

Nelson said the company has full-time licensed members on staff to oversee their new facility.

"We were fortunate to have that kind of personnel on the site already, to have that experience and talent," he said. "We hire a pretty good external company, Symbiont, that we contract with as a consulting agency."

Grande has one waste that is constant, which allows them to use the Bio-P process, said Gerald Ellefson, superintendent of Monroe's municipal wastewater treatment plant.

But Monroe's wastewater is different. Different types of industries, such as the whey, ethanol and beverage plants, create different wastewater with variable characteristics.

Therefore, Monroe uses a Chemical-P (Chem-P) process, which is more reliable to remove phosphates. Chem-P removal usually requires smaller equipment, and a smaller footprint on the land, than Bio-P removal.

In the Chem-P process, salts of iron (e.g. ferric chloride) or aluminum (e.g. alum), attach to the phosphates and settle it out. At the end of the process, the bio-mass goes to the digester tanks, where bacteria break down the solid waste material, reducing its volume, odor and disease-causing organisms.

Effluent discharge is highly-regulated by the DNA, as is the disposal of the bio-mass. Ellefson called the size of the DNA regulations he must follow "an encyclopedia."

Lawton said she did not have any available information for Monroe's effluent discharge.

The DNR allows two ways to dispose of the bio-mass. It can be applied to land, with the right crops, or it can be buried in a land fill. Monroe chooses to give it away, Ellefson said.

"This is the most economical condition," Ellefson said. "The valuable nutrient supplement saves money for the farmer."

For as much as wastewater treatment plants go through to meet DNR requirements, conservation activists are calling for DNR to meet its duty in preparing clean up plans for Wisconsin's rivers and lakes, over 600 of which are on the federal Clean Water Act's list of impaired waters. Of those, about 300 are listed as impaired for phosphorous, sedimentation, low dissolved oxygen, nutrients, cloudiness and bacteria.

Two sections of the Honey Creek and the north fork of Juda Branch Creek were added to the list of "Impaired Waters without approved TMDLs" in 1998. Honey Creek has been ranked with a high priority, and Juda with a low priority.

About 12 other waterways in Green County have approved TMDLs, or total maximum daily loads.

The DNR has about 51 cleanup plans. Most are for phosphorous and sediment runoff in agricultural areas. And most are for waterways with end-of-pipe point sources, where pipes directly discharge, Lawton said. End-of-pipe discharges can include dairy processing facilities, municipal wastewater facilities, paper mills and city storm sewers.

DNR estimates that it would cost $7.5 million dollars over 15 years to conduct water quality monitoring to prepare TMDLs for the 300 impaired waterways.