Water Stewardship

Caring about Our Community

Much of Organic Valley's butter is crafted at our creamery in the village of Chaseburg, Wisconsin. When it was brought to our attention that our growing production and the subsequent increased wastewater generation would eventually max out the village’s wastewater treatment system, we took it upon ourselves (as any good citizen would) to retrofit our plant in such a way that reduced the load on the village’s system.

We installed a Dissolved Air Filtration (DAF) unit to filter out the solid waste that comes of butter making and pre-cleans the water before it goes into the village system. That way, the water can pass through the settling ponds quickly, freeing up space for the material that requires more filtration and settling.

The solids we filter out at the plant are taken to a local dairy for use in its manure digester which converts the waste into bio-gas used for energy production.

In addition to a financial benefit from installing the filtration system, attending to the Co-op’s social responsibility and ecological integrity has paid off in more ways than we could have imagined.