Barton Brands asks city for help with distillery waste treatment

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Monday, Oct. 26, 2015, 11 a.m. — Sazerac-owned Barton Brands has asked the City of Bardstown to accept its raw, untreated distillery waste after the company has struggled with its own pre-treatment processes to eliminate odor complaints.

The request was part of the discussion at Thursday’s meeting of the Bardstown City Council’s water & wastewater committee.

Public Works Director Larry Hamilton (file photo).

The request was due to ongoing odor complaints, Public Works Director Larry Hamilton told the committee. The discussions are in a very early stage, he said.

Before allowing local distilleries to connect to the city’s sewer system, Barton Brands and Heaven Hill distilleries were required to pre-treat their wastes prior to discharging.

“To allow them not to pretreat could mean to take (their waste) on and shift the problem somewhere else,” Hamilton said, which could mean one of the city’s sewer plants.

The bourbon distiller is open to any workable alternative that will solve its treatment issues, which could include doing the pre-treatment for Barton’s or the city operating its existing pre-treatment facilities on their property, Hamilton said.

He said personally, he believed the distillery could take care of its pretreatment issues by adding more lagoons.

“If there’s science that can solve this problem, we hope to hear it,” he said.

RUBBLE DAM REPAIRS. The existing rubble dam on the Beech Fork River has been restored to its original contours, Hamilton explained. The dam originally was built to pool water for a water intake used by a local distillery, Hamilton explained. It was later to into service by the City of Bardstown as the intake for its pumps to send water to the Sympson Lake reservoir.

Over time, the damn had deteriorated and partly washed out, he said. The city was allowed to bring the dam back to its original design level, and the city crews also worked to stabilzie the bank on the north side of the river.

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