Beet Sugar Waste Lagooning
HARVEY G. ROGERS and L.  H. SMITH
Director Division of Water Pollution and Public Health Engineer
Minnesota Department of Health
Minneapolis, Minnesota
A study of the use of lagoons for the disposal of beet sugar wastes
was conducted at the plant of the American Crystal Sugar Co., Moor-
head, Minnesota, during the campaign years of 1949-50-51. The information in this paper has been taken from the progress reports prepared
on this investigation. The plant is located adjacent to the northern
boundary of the City of Moorhead in Clay County, Minnesota. Wastes
are discharged from the plant to the lagoons and, after impoundment
over the winter, from the lagoons at controlled rates to county ditch
and thence to the Red River of the North.
The study was sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Health
in collaboration with the U. S. Public Health Service and member
states of the Missouri River Basin Sanitation Agreement. Costs of
the study were defrayed by a grant from the U. S. Public Health
Service from funds allotted under the Federal Water Pollution Control
Act.
Personnel was provided largely by the staff of the Division of Water
Pollution Control of the Minnesota Department of Health. Personnel
of the American Crystal Sugar Company at Moorhead assisted in
collection of samples during the 1950 campaign at the plant. Consultants on special problems were from the staff of the University of
Minnesota.
Plant Processes
The plant was placed in operation in 1948 and was designed to
extract the sugar from 2,880 tons of sugar beets per day. It embodies
the most recent developments in sugar extraction equipment and design.
Briefly the processing of sugar beets to recover sugar at the plant is
carried out as follows:
Beets from storage are flumed through a stone trap and then to
the beet wheel washer. They are then conveyed to the slicer where
the beets are cut into long slender slices known as "cossettes". The
"cossettes" are conveyed over a weightometer and thence to a continuous 21-cell counter-current diffuser where the sugar is extracted
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