Operations-Focused Design, Construction and Startup of the Bozeman, Montana Advanced Nutrient Removal Facility

The City of Bozeman, Montana recently completed design, construction and startup of an upgrade and expansion of the City's conventional activated sludge plant to a 5-Stage Bardenpho nutrient removal facility with a maximum month flow of 10 MGD. Key challenges the City of Bozeman faced included an operations staff with limited experience in operating a biological nutrient removal (BNR) facility and the need for an operator-friendly treatment process that is capable of consistently meeting more stringent effluent nutrient loading limits. The City of Bozeman and the engineering design team collaborated to design an operations-friendly facility that would meet these challenges. The City of Bozeman process came online in September 2011 and rapidly began to surpass the nutrient removal and effluent quality design goals. The project operations-focused facility design features, key startup procedures and treatment process performance are reviewed. In addition, key process challenges and troubleshooting techniques explored over the first year of facility operation in the cold weather climate of Montana are presented.