Portable toilet waste equals the same sewage as 165 homes

Columbia Falls will look to curb the amount of portable toilet waste it takes at its sewage treatment plant in the next few years.

Over the years, the amount of waste brought by companies like Pop A Squat and PeeWees has risen significantly, as much as 400%. It used to be the companies were locally owned and only covered Flathead County for the most part.

But now they cover multiple counties and are owned by larger corporations.

As such, the city calculated that the amount of portable toilet waste it was accepting amounted to about 165 regular households.

To add to the problems, the waste comes all at once and is in high solids and phosphorus, so it’s expensive to treat.

“It’s a big blow to the system,” city manager Susan Nicosia told council last week.

Other local sewage treatment plants won’t or aren’t taking the waste. Kalispell won’t take it at all and Whitefish currently doesn’t have a permit to accept it, though once it gets one, it could accept the waste.

The longterm solution, Nicosia noted, will probably come when the county completes a biosolids facility. Plans for it are in the works and it will likely go on land at the south end of the county.

But that will take some time to get up and running.

In the meantime, the city will look to reduce the amount of portable toilet sewage it takes in over the next three years by 75%, then 50% and then 25%.

The reduction would bring the amount accepted to more historic levels. The city council approved the plan unanimously.

The city is currently undergoing a more than $5 million upgrade to its sewage treatment plant.