STURGIS, S.D. – The Sturgis Public Works Department gave residential tours of the city’s new wastewater treatment plant Monday.
Members of the city council got the first tour Monday morning, followed by tours for the media and residents at 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Sturgis Public Works Director Rick Bush says this is the first plant of its kind in the state of South Dakota.
“It’s a bioreactor, mechanical bioreactor plant, or M-B-R plant, and we’re the first one in the state to have one online,” Bush said. “There are a couple of others I am aware of currently being designed, but we were the first in operation here.”
Bush talks about the new technology featured at the plant.
“The technology that it uses is the filtration system that produces incredibly clean, sterile water as a final result; and with that, we are able to discharge directly into Bear Butte Creek and meet all the new E.P.A. requirements.”
A membrane bioreactor (MBR) is a wastewater treatment process combining membrane filtration with biological treatment. Bush says this innovative technology offers several advantages compared with the conventionally activated sludge process. Among these advantages are higher biomass concentration, eliminating the needs of secondary clarifiers and improved effluent quality.
Before the new plant, Sturgis treated its wastewater through filtration and use of waste-eating microbes in a series of four settling ponds located northeast of town.
Treated water is used for irrigation of city property, or discharged into other water sources, such as Bear Butte Creek which runs along the north side of town.
However, municipalities are faced with increasingly strict state and federal standards for treated wastewater to be discharged.
Bush says this new plant will help as Sturgis continues to grow.
“The plant is designed right now for one million gallons a day of treated water and we currently feed that right around 500,000 gallons a day. It has the capacity to go up to two-million gallons a day, so we have tremendous room for growth.”
The overall $16 million cost for the entire project included construction of a new underground interceptor line to take wastewater from where the city’s current wastewater lines converge in the northeast part of Sturgis, near the city soccer fields, out to the city lagoons, located north and east of Sturgis Brown High School.
The new interceptor line, completed last year, more than doubles the capacity of the old line, installed in the 1990’s.
In July 2017, the city began collecting a monthly wastewater surcharge from all of its water customers to help fund the treatment plant construction.
