Waste-Treatment Facilities of the
Belle Center Creamery and
Cheese Company
D. G. Neill
Editor, Industry and Power
St. Joseph, Michigan
Belle Center is a small town of 1,000 people in northern Logan
County approximately six miles east of Indian Lake. The Belle Center
Creamery and Cheese Company, the only industry in the village, is in
the heart of the village and covers approximately a square block of
ground. The company owns a tract of land one mile from the plant
just outside the city limits to the northeast. This land consists of fifty
acres and is used as a disposal farm. A three-inch pipe line connects the
plant with the disposal farm, which has three lagoons covering an area
of twenty acres.
The name of the company does not wholly describe its present functions, although it started as a little cream station on the corner and then
expanded until now its principal products are cheese and milk sugar
(which is derived from cheese whey). In peak production approximately
200 people are employed. One hundred fifty thousand pounds of milk
are processed daily, with an average weekly milk pay to the farmers of
$35,000. From these figures you can easily realize that the company is
a vital factor in the town.
The village of Belle Center has neither waste-treatment facilities nor
sanitary sewers. It does, however, have a system of county ditches (or
sewers) named after past mayors of the village. This system of ditches
drains the storm water, overflow from septic tanks, and house wastes
directly into the Miami River or the Liggitt Lateral, a branch of the
Miami River.   Both these streams are very small.
In 1941 the milk-sugar plant was constructed in order that the
American Home Products Corporation might have a source of raw
material, milk sugar, for use in many of its products. In 1944 the entire
creamery was purchased by the American Home Products Corporation
from its former owner.
The new owners realized that there was a waste-treatment problem ;
but before they could do anything, the farmers downstream and some of
the resort owners on Indian Lake obtained an injunction prohibiting
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