They’ve figured out how to do it in Bozeman, Mont., where the Water Reclamation Facility treats more than 6 million gallons of water a day. Havre, Mont., has figured out how to do it, too.
It involves feeding just the right amount of barley leftover from making beer to the treatment plant’s bacteria at just time right time in just the right dosage.
In Havre, population 10,000, the technique has enabled the town to avoid having to spend $1 million to upgrade its wastewater plant to meet new, more stringent clean water standards. The plant’s manager dumps one bucket of spent barley from Triple Dog Brewing into the wastewater every morning.
To be sure, the town could have added alum to the wastewater instead of spent barley. But that would have cost it, thus far, about $16,000. And, if the alum hadn’t done the job, then the $1 million upgrade would have been necessary.
Other water plant managers have looked into the technique, including Boston, where the cost of transporting the liquid brewery waste was simply too expensive. For now. That may change if regulations get stricter.
(This story is based on a report by National Public Radio. You can read and/or listen to it here.)