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Dallas Powell, Hornady environmental compliance manager, left, accepts the 2021 Scott Wilbur Award for Best in Class Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility from Amit Shrivastava, Nebraska Water Environment Federation Association board president. 

Hornady Manufacturing was awarded the 2021 Scott Wilbur Award for Best in Class Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility at the Nebraska Water Environment Federation’s 2021 Joint Fall Conference.

The award recognizes the state’s well-operated facilities, Hornady Environmental Compliance Manager Dallas Powell explained.

In 2020, Hornady, an ammunition manufacturer, installed a system designed by Powell and Alar Water Treatment.

The system uses a rotary vacuum drum systems invented by Alar.

“We got it up and running efficiently, so I sent in the application because I knew that, not only the state, but other industries across Nebraska, would benefit from seeing this technology,” she told The Independent.

The system takes the washwater Hornady uses to clean the cases and bullets produced in Grand Island and chemically treats it to precipitate any metals, Powell said.

The filter, which is coated with diatomaceous earth media, “separates the water from the solid particles, generating one micron clean water in producing dry, landfill-ready solids.”

“This system allowed for an immediate increase in production capacity for the Grand Island plant, which, with COVID and everything, was a very big plus,” she said.

Hornady is now treating twice as much water as what was being produced a year ago, and can accommodate any future growth, Powell said.

“The expansion that’s happening at this Grand Island plant will not affect the capacity we have here,” she said. “We can probably run twice as much as we are today, and still be just fine with the system we have in place.”

It was a challenge to develop this new filter system, Powell said.

“Traditionally, you have wastewater that has plenty of solids, but in the case of the copper rinses and lead bullet rinses, there wasn’t just enough solids and any other traditional system we would have to add a lot of polymer and chemical just to try to get a plate press, or any other traditional technology, to work,” she explained.

It took nearly a full year to find a system that could filter both solids, and still meet the permit limits in place for a facility such as Hornady, Powell said.

Powell called it a “great accomplishment” for Hornady to receive the recognition.

“The Water Environment Federation is pretty impressed that we could accomplish this,” she said. “Most ammunition manufacturers are seen as difficult to get into compliance with regulations, but Hornady strives to be good stewards of the environment.”

She added, “Hornady wasn’t scared to try technology that isn’t common in Nebraska, and to take that risk and have this kind of reward is pretty awesome.”

For more information about Hornady Manufacturing, visit www.hornady.com.

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Dallas Powell, Hornady environmental compliance manager, left, accepts the 2021 Scott Wilbur Award for Best in Class Industrial Wastewater Treatment Facility from Amit Shrivastava, Nebraska Water Environment Federation Association board president. 

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