North American Wetland Engineering, a nationally recognized environmental engineering company in Forest Lake has won three major awards, company officials Curt Sparks and Scott Wallace said.ìNAWE must be doing something right,î Sparks said. ìSome people wait all their lives to win environmental awards like this. Three at once is really humbling.î
The first two awards come as a result of innovative environmental projects in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The city of Prinsburg and the St. Croix Chippewa Tribe in Hertel, WI, were awarded the Earth Day project by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rural Development. Each year the Rural Development office in each state seeks a project to celebrate on Earth Day. An Earth Day project is selected because it has the greatest environmental benefit of any of the projects funded state-wide.
Both states selected projects designed by NAWE. And both projects will use the natural purification processes offered by engineered wetlands to treat wastewater.
Prinsburgís projected $3.2 million wastewater system will receive $757,000 from Rural Development and $756,000 from the Minnesota Water Infrastructure Fund. The remainder of the funds come from the Rural Development loan program. The infrastructure improvements include replacing an old and deteriorating sewer system and the addition of constructed wetlands with sand filters for polishing and a disinfection system. The treated water will be discharged to Chetomba Creek, part of the troubled Minnesota River Watershed.
The city has been waiting five years to construct the project. Until now the combination of funds was insufficient to make the wastewater systems affordable for the community. The partnership of the state and federal government made this project possible. The low cost of constructed wetlands and the ease of operation makes the project financially and technically feasible.
In Hertel, a severe shortage of housing for the St. Croix Chippewa can now be addressed when new homes are constructed and connected to the new wastewater system. The health clinic, day care and community center wastewater systems will all be upgraded.
The $3.2 million treatment system will receive 75 percent grant assistance from Rural Development. Environmental protection was a high priority for the tribal council. A new water system was recently completed but the community lacked a long term solution to manage its wastewater. This project is being recognized as an exemplary effort to protect the environmental health of the community.
The Hertel community will be served by a gravity sewer with lift stations feeding septic tanks for solids removal. The water is then treated in a subsurface flow constructed wetland. The engineered wetland is designed to increase its efficiency by the addition of air piped through a unique system developed by NAWE called Forced Bed Aerationô. After polishing the effluent in a sand filter and disinfection the water is discharged to a natural wetland that seeps into the ground returning the clean water back to the groundwater aquifer.
Both the Prinsburg and Hertel Earth Day projects are scheduled for construction this summer.
The prestigious Minnesota Environmental Initiative Award, Private Sector was given to NAWE at the annual awards banquet at the University of Minnesota for its development of decentralized wastewater management in Minnesota. NAWE was the first firm in Minnesota to propose and successfully obtain a permit from the MPCA for a conservation community cluster development wastewater system at the Fields of St. Croix in Lake Elmo. Before the term ìdecentralized wastewater managementî was developed, NAWEís vision of small community wastewater systems using environmental friendly technology was being implemented in unsewered areas across the state.Ý
The development of wastewater technology at NAWE has created nothing short of a revolution in residential development outside the sewered areas of communities.
Cluster development is a ìsmart growthî concept that places homes in clusters creating neighborhoods that can be efficiently served by electricity, gas, telephone, sewer, water and other utilities. It allows for preservation of environmental sensitive areas as open space. It establishes an orderly development that does not chop up large tracts of land in cookie cutter large acreage lots.Ý
North American Wetland Engineering has been the recipient of many awards for its engineering conservation designs. In 1999 NAWE was selected as the Engineer of the Year by Rural Development. NAWE clients have previously received four Minnesota Environmental Initiative Awards including Rahr Malting, Fields of St. Croix, Forest Lake School District and Jackson Meadows. In 2003 NAWE was runner-up for its invention of Forced Bed Aerationô.
Sparks, a former MPCA manager, and Wallace, a consulting engineer, teamed in 1997 to form the company. NAWEís mission is to make the world a better place through the application of environmental friendly technologies. ÝNAWEís efforts have resulted in four US patents for wastewater technology improvements, over 150 wastewater systems in 15 states that has resulted in the construction of over $55 million in pollution control infrastructure.
Wallace is authoring two engineering textbooks on constructed wetlands. Sparks and Wallace have published numerous papers on small community wastewater technology and environmental protection.Ý Wallace believes ìall of this is a result of NAWEís ability to satisfactorily address the wastewater needs of communities. It is nice to find engineered solutions that are better for the environment than our traditional approaches.î
Sparks said, ìthere is no better environmental tribute to a community than to be involved in an Earth Day award. And this year for NAWE, it happened in both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Then two weeks later we receive the Environmental Initiative Award.î
NAWE has been headquartered in Forest Lake since it started in 1997. The firm has grown from two original employees (Sparks and Wallace) to a full-time staff of 15 professionals. NAWE engineers and scientists work on projects across the United States as well as internationally.
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