Great River Energy’s Elk River Resource Recovery Project made several process improvements in 2011 that have boosted electricity production, increased the value of recyclable materials, improved the plant’s efficiency and eliminated almost all waste being sent to a landfill instead of turned into refuse-derived fuel or recycled.

In addition to nearly eliminating waste sent to landfills, improved operations will result in annual cost savings of more than $1.1 million.

The improvements include a new ferrous metal clean-up system. The system makes the metal more valuable, delivering a net revenue of $240 per ton, up from $90 per ton prior to the cleaning system installation. The processing plant recycles approximately 7,800 tons of ferrous metal each year leading to a large increase in revenue. 

Additional improvements were made to reprocess the leftover residue, allowing 80-90 percent of it to go to our power waste-to-energy plant, Elk River Energy Recovery Station, for additional electricity generation. The remaining concentrated “final residue” material that had previously been sent to a landfill can now be sold to a local metal refining company, turning even more waste into viable products.

Previously, any large “bulky” materials that were delivered to the project could not be processed and were transferred to trailers and transported to a landfill. Processing equipment was added that now allows these bulky items, such as unrecyclable mattresses or furniture, to be shredded and then processed with other waste to recover the metals and to make additional refuse-derived fuel. By shredding bulky waste and reprocessing residue, almost no material goes to a landfill from ERRRP anymore.

Watch this video to learn how the project works!

Memorial Blood Centers’ Bloodmobile is at Great River Energy’s Maple Grove office today.

Approximately 25 of our employees are generously donating the life saving gift of blood. The 25 or so units of blood collected here today amounts to about 72 lives saved!

As the primary supplier of blood to over 30 area hospitals throughout Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin, Memorial Blood Centers must collect over 2,000 units of blood every week to meet demand.

Learn more at the Memorial Blood Centers website: mbc.org

It is vital that all consumers understand the importance of electrical safety at home, where electric potential is measured in hundreds of volts and can cause serious injury. On the electric grid where electric currents can be more than 1,000 times as powerful, safety can be a matter of life and death.

Great River Energy goes to any length to ensure there are safeguards in place that protect its employees and members.

Equally important is Great River Energy’s culture of safety. Every employee is empowered to report safety concerns with the expectation that they will be acted upon. That culture of safety led to the safest year in the history of the cooperative in 2011.

“Perhaps the thing that makes me proudest about the past year at Great River Energy is that it was our safest on record,” said Great River Energy President and CEO David Saggau. “It doesn’t matter what successes we have as an organization – if we don’t create a safe work environment for our employees we have failed in every respect.”

Great River Energy achieved all-time safety records in several industry-recognized categories, including Total Injury Rate (TIR) and Days Away, Restricted, Transferred (DART) rate. Both injury rates were significantly better than industry averages.

Safety is a corporate value at Great River Energy and all employees are responsible for ensuring a culture of safety among employees and the communities Great River Energy serves.

Generating and transmitting electricity is a dangerous business, and Great River Energy is proud to have achieved this milestone as it strives for an even better workplace.

The economic downturn has resulted in an alarming trend for nonprofits: need is increasing and funding is decreasing. The generosity of Great River Energy employees has bucked that trend – the annual community giving campaign reaches new heights every year.

A group of our employees volunteering their time and labor at a Habitat for Humanity project.

The community giving campaign offers employees the opportunity to have their financial contributions matched by company dollars each fall. This year’s effort raised approximately $80,000 for nonprofit organizations in Minnesota and North Dakota.

Three Minnesota nonprofits – Sherburne County Area United Way, Greater Twin Cities United Way and Community Health Charities Minnesota – and five North Dakota charities – McLean Family Resource Center, Mercer County Women’s Action & Resource Center, Missouri Slope Areawide United Way, Jamestown United Way and Carrie’s Kids – benefited from this outpouring of financial support.

This is just one way that Great River Energy exemplifies that cooperative principle of “concern for community.” Beyond providing reliable electric service, an electric cooperative must strive for the development of sustainable communities.

By the numbers
In 2011, Great River Energy made a difference in the communities it serves in many ways. Here are just a few of our community giving stats:
• $80,000 raised during the employee community giving campaign
• 2,400 paid volunteer hours used by employees
• 48 scholarships awarded to Minnesota and North Dakota students
• 276 lives impacted by company blood drives
• 48 turkeys donated to families in need the week of Thanksgiving

Great River Energy is not only a utility that generates electricity for its members, but is also a corporate citizen that can have an impact on the communities it serves beyond its business purpose.

Great River Energy sponsors events, such as the Mesabi Trail Tour, to demonstrate our commitment to the communities we serve through our member cooperatives.

To demonstrate this, each year Great River Energy partners with organizations and initiatives that have a positive impact on the community and member consumers through sponsorships.

Nothing builds a stronger connection to the environment than getting out in nature and getting your hands dirty. GreenTouch Day is a statewide partnership between Minnesota’s Touchstone Energy Cooperatives and Minnesota State Parks and Trails. On the first Saturday of every May, electric cooperative employees, members and area residents pitch in to spruce up a Minnesota state park.

The Minnesota State Fair continues to highlight agriculture, as well as farm and show animals – a characteristic of many of our cooperative communities. As a sponsor of the Minnesota State Fair Milk Run and exhibit participant in the fair, Great River Energy is able to partner with its member cooperatives to educate fairgoers about electric co-ops.

In North Dakota, Great River Energy sponsors a number of events to support both local organizations and communities near its power plants and other business locations. Some examples include the Hazen concert series, Jamestown Chamber of Commerce Ag Days, Lewis and Clark Days in Washburn and Harvest Fest in Underwood.

These sponsorships present an opportunity for Great River Energy to cultivate community relationships by demonstrating care for the communities where it has employees and members.

Safe sidewalks are an important step toward safe routes to schools. A Great River Energy donation will make it possible for students in one North Dakota community to bike and walk to class without worry.

A donation of ash produced at Great River Energy power plants will help the Safe Routes to Schools program improve the health and well-being of children by enabling and encouraging them to choose active ways to get to school. The project will use Great River Energy ash for the replacement of an existing sidewalk in Washburn, N.D.

The new sidewalks will use bottom ash as a soil stabilizer to help build a firm foundation for concrete, which will incorporate fly ash, another byproduct of coal-fueled electricity generation.

When fly ash is used as a replacement for a portion of cement in sidewalk construction the concrete has been proven to be stronger and longer-lasting. Other community benefits include the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.

Approximately one ton of greenhouse gas emissions are prevented for every ton of fly ash used in place of cement.

In the wake of a catastrophe, even simple things like a hot meal can make someone’s day. When a group of Great River Energy employees brought lunch to a school damaged by North Dakota flooding, the gesture represented much more than a free lunch.

Great River Energy employees set up a temporary lunch line and served food to students at Longfellow Elementary in Minot, N.D.

Longfellow Elementary School in Minot, N.D., was damaged by historic flooding and is currently under re-construction. To accommodate the school year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) helped put together a makeshift school with classrooms made of modular trailers connected by tin and plywood breezeway areas. The temporary school has no gym, lunchroom or any large common space area, so instead of a hot lunch program kids eat cold lunches every day.

When a Great River Energy employee became aware of these conditions, the company and its employees found a way to help. An employee contribution committee purchased a hot meal of comfort food – meatballs, mashed potatoes, corn, bread and cake – and employees traveled to Minot to serve.

“We set up in the breezeway with the roasters of food, dished them into individual containers and brought them to the classrooms,” said Great River Energy Communications Specialist Rachel Retterath. “The response from the kids and teachers was overwhelming. Kids couldn’t help themselves from giving hugs to our employees or hide their excitement for the hot food.”

Great River Energy employees got a first-hand look at the flood damage in Minot, N.D., while volunteering to help restore a dwelling that recently housed four Minot families.

En route to Minot, employees passed through areas surrounding the Souris River to find deserted neighborhoods, dirt dikes being hauled away and homes wearing water level marks on the exterior.

The volunteers demolished the interior of a fourplex and prepared it to be cleaned and rebuilt. After two days of hard work, the interior demolition was complete and the building was ready for a high-pressure sanitizing cleaning. The building is expected to be completed before the snow falls and provide shelter for four families.

We coordinated the volunteer event with All Hands Volunteers, a nonprofit organization that provides hands-on assistance to survivors of natural disasters around the world.

The disastrous flood damaged more than 4,000 homes as well as businesses, schools, churches and other community buildings leaving more than 11,000 people homeless.

In response to widespread flooding across North Dakota, Great River Energy is donating $100,000 to support flood relief efforts in Bismarck and Minot and the surrounding area.

Aerial view of the Missouri River in the Bismarck-Mandan, North Dakota area. Taken from a North Dakota National Guard Black Hawk helicopter on July 19, 2011. (Photo by Sgt 1st Class Steve Urlacher, N.D. National Guard Visual Information)

The donation will include $50,000 to the North Dakota Community Foundation Flood Relief Fund and $50,000 to the Minot Area Community Foundation Flood Relief Fund. The donations will help support flood relief efforts for Bismarck and Minot and the surrounding area.

“Flooding has impacted many of our employees, families, friends and neighbors in the communities in which we operate,” said David Saggau, President and CEO. “We want to do what we can to help those affected by the floodwaters.”

We continue to provide flood assistance in other ways including paid time off for employees to help with flood disaster relief, preparedness, public safety efforts and the threat to employees’ homes. Employees are eligible for up to 32 hours of paid time off through August 15 to aid in the flood fight. Thus far, employees have worked 1,220.5 hours (equivalent to more than fifty 24-hour days) in flood assistance efforts, in addition to untold hours that they have donated on their own time.

Great River Energy also donated more than 600 one-ton sandbags and hundreds of pallets for storage and transportation of sandbags at areas affected by the flood. Other assistance has included donations to the Salvation Army and Red Cross to support flood fighting efforts. We also plan to conduct employee flood cleanup days this summer and fall in the flood impacted areas.

Representatives from the Raptor Resource Project were at Great River Energy’s Elk River Energy Recovery Station on Friday, July 8 to band four young peregrine falcons. The eyasses, residents of the nesting box atop the power plant, successfully hatched in late June after a five week incubating period.

The young falcons – two males and two females – appear to be healthy. The males are named Wayne and Hanson, after Wayne Hanson, Great River Energy’s former director of Minnesota generation, who recently passed away. The females are named Elisabeth and Skye, chosen from a list of names provided by students from Salk Middle School in Elk River, Minn. A group of students from the middle school closely followed the adult falcons during the school year and a few students from the group attended the banding. 

The eyasses will now begin to learn to fly and fend for themselves. They will remain in and around the nesting box for the next several weeks. Banding young peregrines provides important information on the birds’ movements and is essential to understanding their habitat needs year-round. The nestlings are removed from the nest box or natural nest site for a short time and metal bands are placed on the bird’s legs. These bands are uniquely lettered and numbered so that if the falcons are observed later, or found injured or dead, they can be identified.

This is the fifth year that Great River Energy has played host to a peregrine falcon family at our Elk River Energy Recovery Station. The site is a perfect location for a peregrine falcon nesting box because it lies within a migratory flyway and beside the Mississippi River (falcons prefer to nest in high locations near water). In recent history, power plants have had the best peregrine falcon production rates in the Midwest.

Watch the falcons on our Birdcam at: http://www.greatriverenergy.com/aboutus/environmental/birdcam.html