Alliant Energy: Partnership helps pave way for EPA recognition in Beaver Dam

Media Contact: Scott Reigstad (608) 458-3145

City’s wastewater treatment plant project honored by EPA

MADISON, Wis. – May 24, 2011 – A partnership between Alliant Energy, Kraft Foods and the City of Beaver Dam supported an innovative improvement project at the city’s wastewater treatment plant that has now received an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) award. On May 23, it was announced that that City of Beaver Dam won an EPA PISCES Award. The award highlights successfully designed projects that further the goal of clean and safe water with exceptional planning, management, and financing.

“Alliant Energy congratulates the City of Beaver Dam and is pleased to be a partner with them, as well as Kraft Foods, on their award-winning project,” said Mark Meierdirk, Alliant Energy Key Account Manager. “Our purchase of all the electricity produced by generators at the wastewater treatment plant ended up being critical to pushing the financing for the project forward.”

The City of Beaver Dam received just one of eleven the PISCES Awards being given out nationally in 2011. The Performance and Innovation in the SRF Creating Environmental Success (PISCES) Awards were created in 2005 to recognize the extraordinary successes of the States’ Clean Water Revolving Fund (CWSRF) programs. Projects financed under the CWSRF programs support the Clean Water Act by protecting environmental health and water quality.

“We are delighted to be recognized by the EPA for the upgrades at our wastewater treatment plant and our use of the Wisconsin Clean Water Revolving Fund program,” said Don Quarford, Beaver Dam Utility Director. “Kraft Foods and their willingness to file a joint grant application to the Fund really got us going with the project and Alliant Energy’s willingness to purchase power from the generators helped it come together as well.”

In 2008 the City of Beaver Dam and Kraft Foods submitted a grant application to Wisconsin’s CWSRF program. In 2009 they were awarded a $19.8 million grant from the fund. The project included installing a pipeline from Kraft to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, updating the existing digesters at the plant and installing a new digester for the whey from Kraft Foods. It also involved adding two electric generators that are powered by the methane from the digesters. The generators produce twice the electricity than is needed to run the wastewater treatment plant and Alliant Energy purchases all the electricity produced by the generators.