BELT — A new water treatment plant in Belt will soon begin removing metal contamination from abandoned coal mines that has been flowing into Belt Creek.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday officially opened the $13 million facility, marking the completion of a project that has been in development since 2007.
Justin Robicheau reports - watch the video here:
"We've been working on it since 2007. There's been several project teams throughout the years and several funding sources. It's been a very challenging project, but it's going to have significant impacts from Montana's natural resources as well as the Belt community," DEQ Abandoned Mine Lands and Construction Section Supervisor Jorri Dyer said.
The Anaconda Pumphouse will intercept mine-contaminated water before it reaches Belt Creek, according to HGL project engineer Steve Hector. The facility uses a multi-step filtering process to clean the water.
"The water flows into a cistern in there to where we have a couple redundant pumps, a backup generator, and then we pump the water up to the water treatment plant. When we become operational, fully operational, to discharge the water, the clean water back into Belt Creek," Hector said.
Cascade County Commission Chair Jim Larson owned the land where the plant now sits and sold it to DEQ for the project.
"We hashed it all out, and I sold them this piece of land. Well, now, they couldn't put the plant down below, so they moved it up here. And now it's where. The land sale is actually very, well, very helpful," Larson said.
The community will benefit from the plant's water filtering capabilities for generations to come.
"We're going to be removing a lot of metals out of the main water source going through Belt Creek. And so it's going to be providing clean water for the community for the future. And present and future generations," Dyer said.
DEQ says the permit discharge will become active on November 21, which means clean water will begin flowing back into Belt Creek.
