As a hallmark of Kentucky culture, the bourbon industry is a cornerstone of tourism within the state. An emerging concern is that tourism-based operations may exceed wastewater treatment capacities as tourism expands. At a Kentucky distillery’s bottling facility, the wastewater is not receiving adequate water treatment. This facility is facing fines from the EPA and a threat to tourism. The distillery seeks to improve the water quality, reduce contaminants, and meet EPA standards.

The distillery asked for an ecological treatment method to overcome their water quality challenges, a design that would also support tourism to the facility. To determine whether an ecological system would be sufficient, the team weighed various wastewater treatment processes against design criteria.

Selected constraints for the evaluation were budget, efficacy, area, maintenance, safety, time until operation, and impedance of existing operations. Four promising treatment methods identified were constructed wetlands, construction of an additional wastewater processing plant, renovation of the existing wastewater plant, and floating wetlands.

A decision matrix was used to evaluate the options, and it was found that a constructed wetland treatment system best suits the current project parameters.

For this project, the constructed wetland system will serve as an addition to the pre-existing water treatment system. Many methods and design possibilities should be considered when constructing a wetland to ensure that water quality and efficiency are optimized. Surface flow wetlands, subsurface flow wetlands, and hybrid systems have all proven effective at improving water quality; the team determined a surface flow wetland best suits this project because these wetlands require minimal maintenance and are a cost-effective wastewater treatment solution.