Sambatek is proud to be part of the Pilgrim’s Pride Cold Springs team who was awarded the Industrial Water Quality Achievement Award from the Water Environment Federation (WEF). This national award recognizes an organization whose industrial wastewater treatment facility best demonstrates significant, lasting, and measurable excellence in water quality improvements, or in the prevention of water quality degradation as demonstrated by innovative design and operated with the goal of minimizing freshwater use and maximizing water reuse.
The Pilgrim’s Pride Cold Springs Facility processes 210,000 chickens per day and has their own on-site wastewater treatment system which discharges the treated water into the Sauk River. Our engineering team worked with Pilgrim’s Pride to incorporate advanced treatment technologies and innovative operations to produce high-quality water from the wastewater treatment facility.
The facility now uses 25-30% less fresh water for their operations while producing an effluent quality that is well below regulatory standards. These refined processes resulted in phosphorus and total nitrogen concentrations well below the background levels in the Sauk River, providing cleaner water to the river and increasing the health of the area ecosystems. This positive impact on the environment is a clear example of a corporation and project team doing the right thing for the right reasons.
Project team members from left to right: Sambatek Project Manager Mike Burdorf, WEF President Tom Kunetz, Pilgrim’s Pride Cold Springs Complex Environmental Manager Brian Mehr, and Pilgrim’s Pride Cold Springs Water Resources Supervisor Ronald Olmscheid.