Construction is well underway on a $70-million milk processing facility near Blackfalds.
The Dairy Innovation West (DIW) dewatering plant that will be able to concentrate up to 300 million litres of milk a year is being built in the Aspelund Industrial Park just west of Highway 2. It is the first facility of its kind in Canada and concentrates raw milk through ultra-filtration, which concentrates proteins, and reverse osmosis, which removes the water.
Concentrated milk is used in a wide variety of milk products, such as skim milk powder, cheese and butter, and will be trucked throughout Western Canada. The concentration process dramatically reduces the number of trucks needed to transport milk products, cutting transportation costs for producers and beefing up their bottom line.
It is estimated only one half to one quarter of trucks will be required, depending on the process requested. Besides saving dairy producers money, it will reduce emissions.
Central Alberta has many dairy operations but a shortage of processing capacity has been an ongoing problem. Milk has had to be trucked as far as Abbotsford, B.C. for processing.
The facility is co-owned by five western milk marketing boards, Alberta Milk, SaskMilk, Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, B.C. Milk Marketing Board and B.C. Dairy Association, which are all members of the Western Dairy Pool.
Construction on the building began late last summer and will mostly be this November.
“Silo and membrane installation will occur in December 2024, with plant commissioning first with water, followed by milk trials from January through March,” said an Alberta Milk spokesperson. “The official handover timing for DIW is scheduled for hand over for May 2025.”
First announced in 2019 and expected to be completed in 2021, the project was delayed by the COVID pandemic and regulatory hurdles.
Lacombe County council was told on Thursday that upgrades to water and wastewater services to the industrial area will be needed because of the amount of water the dairy plant will require. About one million litres of water and 1.2 millions of wastewater capacity daily.
The county and Blackfalds share the cost of servicing the area through a joint economic agreement.
County community services director Dion Burlock told council that the town said that while there is enough capacity in a reservoir to meet the dairy plant’s needs additional reservoir capacity is needed for future growth.
Burlock recommended the town approve $2.54 million as its share of the $6.2 million cost of increasing reservoir capacity and upgrading pumps. The cost is eventually recouped through the levies developers pay when they build.