Bigfork’s new $9.6 million dollar wastewater treatment plant won an American Counsel of Engineering Companies’ engineering excellence award in the wastewater category in November.

The facility was designed through a combined effort of Morrison-Maierle, Inc. and members of the Bigfork Water and Sewer District board. District manager Julie Spencer said the award was given to Morrison-Maierle for the design and completion of the project.

“It’s just a pat on the back,” Spencer said. “It just is acknowledgement that it’s a good project.”

The facility was completed in April of this year after almost two years of planning and construction. An $8.1 million dollar bond passed by Bigfork Water and Sewer District voters in 2010 and $1.5 million in grants are paying for the project. Bigfork’s new facility replaced the original wastewater plant, which was built in 1986 and had a life expectancy of about 20 years.

Lead design engineer on the project Jeff Ashley said the project won the ACEC award because it’s unique. It’s the first project of its kind in the state and the whole processing plant needed to be built under one roof in the residential area where the wastewater facility is located.

The plant was upgraded to a Membrane Bioreactor (MBR) treatment system, which utilizes membrane filtration to achieve maximum nutrient removal while maintaining a relatively small footprint. It is capable of handling a peak flow of 1.2 million gallons per day.

The filtration unit replaced a system that neared its maximum capacity of 500,000 gallons per day in the summer months and didn’t remove enough phosporus and nitrogen from the wastewater before it was discharged from the plant into Flathead Lake.

“It was very proactive of the district to move forward with this project because of the lake,” Ashley said. “You get very, very clean water outside of the end of the membrane. It’s almost drinking water quality.”

Ashley said MBR systems are used in hundreds of other facilities across the country. Bigfork bringing the technology to Montana can serve as an example for other wastewater projects in the state.

“It’s a very good example of how a smaller community like Bigfork can go through the planning efforts and find funding to implement a project,” Ashley said. “I really see it as an example project for smaller communities in a similar situation.”