BRODHEAD — Brodhead officials announced Monday that the city has won a major national award for its water systems, treatment processes and erosion control efforts.
The American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin named The City of Brodhead and MSA Professional Services, Inc. to jointly receive a Best of State Award for the city’s Water Quality Trading program.
The Water Quality Trading program, the city said in a statement, is a “multi-faceted solution to surpass water quality-based effluent limits for phosphorus; and for protecting the local watershed from harmful nutrient runoff.”
Officials said the trading program successfully reduces the municipality’s total phosphorus load by 1,090 pounds per year, generates approximately 390 annual pounds of WQT credits, revitalizes 1.2 miles of eroding streambanks along a phosphorus-contributing creek; and establishes long-term influential nutrient management practices at a local dairy farm.
It also saves the city about $3.8 million in “lifecycle costs” as compared to making significant investments in upgrades to an existing wastewater treatment facility.
Work along Searles Creek involved the mitigation of 62 actively eroding streambanks with techniques that included soil bioengineering, natural erosion control and the reintroduction of backwater refuges and habitat for aquatic wildlife, the city noted.
Project solutions at a local dairy farm included the construction of a new 2.2-million-gallon manure tank, installation of roof infrastructure to reduce runoff, the addition of waste reception tanks and transfer piping, and improvements to nutrient management practices of crop fields — all to further reduce phosphorus from entering the local watershed.
“MSA and the City of Brodhead are honored to receive this recognition,” said Jason Miller, PE, vice president of water services at MSA.
ACEC Wisconsin Best of State Award recipients advance to the ACEC National competition in Washington, D.C. and will be formally recognized at the 2022 ACEC Wisconsin Awards Banquet on April 22, 2022.