Disposal of Liquid Wastes by the
Irrigation Method at Vegetable
Canning Plants in Minnesota
1948-1950
J. A. DRAKE AND F. K. BIERI
Public Health Engineer
and
Assistant Public Health Engineer
Minnesota Department of Health
Division of Water Pollution Control
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota has 31 vegetable canneries and for the most part the canneries operate during the period from June until the middle of September each year. A few operate into the late fall months and several reprocess frozen vegetables during the winter months. One plant operates only during the winter months and processes rutabagas. The other 30 plants are engaged entirely or chiefly in the processing of peas and sweet corn, and the total yearly production is roughly three million cases of peas and five million cases of corn.
Up until 1948 those canneries which had waste treatment facilities disposed of their wastes either to lagoons or to municipal sewer systems for treatment at municipal sewage treatment plants. Treatment of cannery wastes along with municipal sewage did not prove to be satisfactory and the last of these combinations was discontinued in 1950. The principal reason for this was that the canneries are located in relatively small communities, and even where waste treatment plants were designed specifically to handle the combined domestic and industrial waste, the plants were not able to adapt themselves to the peak load during the canning season and the wastes were not sufficiently well treated to prevent nuisances.
Disposal of cannery wastes to lagoons,* which has hitherto been the most frequently used method of cannery waste disposal in Minnesota, has in some cases been satisfactory, but in others difficulties have been
* The term cannery waste lagoon as used here indicates a storage pond large enough to receive and retain the entire waste flow from a canning plant from the start of the canning season until the following spring run-off, at which time the lagoon may be bled into a nearby stream under controlled conditions.
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