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Water moved: Hauling of wastewater from Grant Township going as expected

Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette The secondary lagoon of the Grant Township wastewater treatment facility in Copper Harbor recently received modifications, including an added curtain, and additional aerators to hasten the decomposition rate of the wastewater.

COPPER HARBOR — Grant Township Supervisor Ken Stigers said additional haulage of wastewater from the treatment facility at Copper Harbor will not be necessary, as the reason it was done appears to be working.

During the last week of June, Grant Township had transported 302,400 gallons of wastewater from the secondary lagoon to the wastewater treatment facility of the former Air Force radar station on Mt. Horace Greeley in Houghton Township. The Keweenaw County Board had approved the township’s request previously.

Keweenaw County Board Chairman Don Piche briefly discussed the topic at that board’s regular meeting on June 20, saying the plan was for the township to begin hauling the wastewater on June 23.

“It looks like they’re going to end up hauling anywhere from 300 to 350,000 gallons,” Piche said at the meeting. “They’re going to try to get six loads a day, at 6,000 gallons a load out of there, if they can.”

Stigers explained the reason for the transport, telling the meeting audience that it was to help the secondary lagoon process the wastewater remaining in it after the modifications were made. Those included expanding its capacity by adding another curtain, and also by installing additional aerators, which will increase the rate at which biodegration can occur, so the removal of some 300,00 gallons of material was necessary.

“That was done to kind of kick-start the modifications,” Stigers explained, “to give the modifications made to the second lagoon time to work, and it has apparently worked. The (test) numbers that we have been discharging have come back and they are good.”

Stigers said he no longer has to wake up at 2 a.m. wondering if the experiment would work.

“Now, when I wake up at two in the morning,” he said, “I say to myself: ‘It did work.'”

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