by Wayne Karlovich, P.E.

Beaver Dam is a thriving city of 16,000 people, the second largest city in Dodge County, Wisconsin. It is located along the 6,000 acre Beaver Dam Lake. The City was first settled in 1841 near an old beaver dam on a tributary to the Beaver Dam River.

In 2007, the City of Beaver Dam was at a crossroads: its WWTF was over 22 years old and was operating at 160% of the plant’s design capacity, it lacked capacity for future growth over the next 20 years, and it had reached the end of its 20-year design life. In response, the City began preparing a long-range Wastewater Facilities Plan to meet the treatment needs of its residents while maintaining the high quality of the Beaver Dam River, which plays an important social and environmental role in the region.  Additionally, the City wanted to provide adequate treatment capacity for existing and future growth of industries to maintain the long term economic vitality of the community.

Kraft Foods is one of the largest employers in the area and the largest industrial wastewater discharger in the City.  It has operated in Beaver Dam since 1922 and produces over 178 million pounds of Philadelphia brand cream cheese each year. Kraft’s normal process wastewater is discharged into the City’s sewer system and represents about one third of the wasteload at the Beaver Dam WWTF.  However, Kraft generates over 23 million gallons of high-strength waste per year that cannot be discharged to the City’s sewer system. It is becoming more difficult to land spread these wastes and costly to transfer them.  On a corporate basis, Kraft has developed a vision for long-term sustainability that is being implemented throughout its facilities around the world.

Since Beaver Dam was in the process of planning an upgrade of its WWTF, the City and Kraft Foods worked cooperatively to evaluate and pilot test a pretreatment system at the WWTF to treat high-strength wastes and process wastewater from Kraft.  The effluent from the pretreatment system would discharge to the upgraded WWTF.  The wasteload from the pretreatment system would be less than just the process wastewater from Kraft if it continued to be discharged directly to the City.  This reduced the size of the facilities that needed to be upgraded at the Beaver Dam treatment plant.

The pilot test and related studies demonstrated that Kraft and the City of Beaver Dam could join forces to create a new system with major benefits for both parties. A pretreatment system would reduce the projected loading on the Beaver Dam wastewater treatment plant, plus produce a useful fuel: biogas. The high strength Kraft wastewater could be treated using a high-rate anaerobic biological treatment system, and the resulting biogas would contain approximately 70% methane, which is the same combustible compound found in natural gas. Methane is a fuel that can be used to great advantage. In addition, the pretreatment system would eliminate the increasingly difficult waste disposal issue at the Kraft plant.

The program was described to officials in the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources through the Facilities Planning process. The State of Wisconsin was in the fortunate position of having funding available through the federal economic stimulus program. Using the federal money, the State of Wisconsin became a major partner in the effort to move the project ahead. Ultimately, the state provided $10 million towards the construction of the new facilities. The total construction cost was $20 million.

The timing of the project happened to fit into the parameters of the stimulus program, with one caveat: the design of the new facility had to be completed within two months. Any longer and the process of creating the drawings and specifications for the new facility would have resulted in missing the necessary schedule for the funding program. The engineers and technicians at Applied Technologies were challenged to have the documents ready for construction bids by July 2009. It took dedication to the project and more than just a couple of Saturdays on the job to meet the deadlines, but the documents were completed on-time.

The final project included a completely new pretreatment system for the Kraft wastewater located on the City’s treatment plant site. The new facilities include pumps and pipes to transfer the wastewater almost a mile from the Kraft plant to the City’s plant site. The new pretreatment system includes a fine screen, an equalization tank, a dissolved air flotation treatment process, and the anaerobic treatment process. The biogas produced by the anaerobic process is used as a fuel for two generators. The generators produce approximately 800 kW of electricity on a continuous basis, which is enough power for about 800 homes.

The generators produce more than just electricity. They are part of a cogeneration system, which means that heat from the engines, usually wasted through radiators, is captured. The captured heat is used to heat the pretreatment anaerobic process, as well as the anaerobic sludge digesters in the main plant.
In addition to the pretreatment system, the construction project included improvements to the main wastewater treatment system. These improvements included expansion of the plant aeration basins, improvements to the chemical system phosphorus removal, updates to the effluent disinfection system, and expansion of the anaerobic sludge digestion system.

Construction of the pretreatment system and the treatment plant improvements started in Fall 2009 and were completed in Spring 2011. Startup for the new systems has been completed, and the staff at the Beaver Dam wastewater treatment plant is fine-tuning the operation of the new facilities. The concept that started with a Facilities Plan in 2007 was completed and operational by 2011. The materials at the Kraft plant that were once just a disposal problem are now a resource for a highly productive waste-to-energy facility. Overall, this project demonstrates the benefits of cooperation among industry and government in solving environmental issues.

The City of Beaver Dam now has another reason to cheer…Its new wastewater treatment facility has been awarded the U.S. EPA’s prestigious PISCES Award! The Performance and Innovation in the SRF (State Revolving Fund) Creating Environmental Success Award is granted to only ten plants in the United States each year. It recognizes innovative partnerships, efficient water use, and creative use of technologies, among other things.

For additional information about this project, please submit the enclosed response card or contact Wayne Karlovich at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it '; document.write( '' ); document.write( addy_text41005 ); document.write( '<\/a>' ); //--> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or (262) 784-7690. Learn how to turn your wastes into revenue!