Butte-Silver Bow is pleased to announce the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Butte Metro Wastewater Treatment Plant. The ceremony will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, December 8 at the Metro Treatment area at 800 Centennial Avenue.
The program for the ceremony includes brief speeches by Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive Matt Vincent, Public Works Director Dave Schultz, Chris Brick from the Clark Fork Coalition, and Rich Day from Trout Unlimited.
“From an environmental perspective, the new metro plant is probably the biggest improvement to Silver Bow Creek and the Upper Clark Fork since the removal of the Silver Bow Creek tailings and the dam at Milltown,” said Vincent. “The project stands to drastically improve the success of every restoration dollar spent in the Clark Fork Basin to date and in the future.”
The more than $30 million plant will bring the Metro Sewer’s effluent water up to state and federal standards, resulting in significant improvements to the water that is discharged to Silver Bow Creek. Certain nutrients will be removed, helping reduce algae blooms that lower oxygen in the water and can lead to dead zones in the creek.
“The big payoff is a cleaner Silver Bow Creek that is better able to support fish and aquatic life. That is also a big payoff for everyone who lives downstream from Butte,” Schultz said.
Silver Bow Creek is a primary headwater of the Clark Fork River watershed, which drains a large portion of western Montana and Idaho into the Columbia River.
Overall costs for the project are expected to be about $30 million, and are funded through low-interest loans the county obtained from the state.
All aspects of the treatment plant will be upgraded, including liquid treatment and preliminary treatment.
The project should be completed in late 2015.