Whitehall receives sewage payment

Whitehall has received the $230,000 surcharge payment from a Blair business that send an overload of material to the city’s sewer treatment plant, which is still laboring to get back to normal.

The payment is for overages during the first quarter of the year.  As of June, the discharges from Associated Milk Producers Inc., AMPI, appear to have lessened, though Whitehall is apprised of the volume of discharge only weeks after it occurs.

The overload is responsible for the smell that occasionally afflicts Whitehall. The overloaded plant also caused the state Department of Natural Resources to cite Whitehall for discharges to the Trempealeau River.

The recent problem with AMPI is the second in three years. In both cases, the overloaded caused the plant to send an odor across Whitehall.

The recent incident of excess discharges began in December, according to an AMPI spokesperson. The city of Blair shares use of the Whitehall facility under a 1983 agreement that both cities are considering revising.

The pollutants in the river from the December overages include biological material, copper, phosphorus and “suspended solids” that in some instances were three times the allowable limit, according to a May 13 notice from the Wisconsin DNR. In some instances, the excesses have lessened since their peaks in December and January, according to the DNR documents. The “suspended solids,” however, rose in March compared to January.