Spirit Lake is celebrating Labor Day with the “World’s Second Shortest Parade.”

The two-block parade begins at 11 a.m. Monday at Third and Maine in downtown Spirit Lake. Anyone is invited to participate, even animals.

Lineup for the parade is at 10:30 a.m. at Third and New Hampshire.

After the parade there will be kids’ races in the nearby park at 11:30 a.m. The Old Timer’s Labor Day Celebration includes a classic car show, a craft fair and other events at the park throughout the day.

– Taryn Brodwater

Bonner County

DEQ grant to pay for wastewater study

Sandpoint and surrounding towns will receive a $147,000 grant to study creating a regional wastewater treatment district, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality announced Friday.

The grant will benefit Sandpoint, Dover, Kootenai and Ponderay, along with the Southside Sewer District and the Schweitzer Resort area, according to a DEQ press release.

The wastewater planning grant aims to help the communities ensure sanitary wastewater services.

The participants are providing matching funding for the grant, for a total of $294,000.

– Taryn Brodwater

RUPERT, Idaho

Methane production plant expands

A company that turns dairy cow manure into methane is expanding to produce enough gas energy to power 5,000 homes.

Intrepid Technology and Resources Inc. is adding an additional eight digester tanks to handle manure from 6,500 cows at Whitesides Dairy near this south-central Idaho town.

“We think this could be a very viable addition to natural gas availability in America,” the company’s president, Jacob Dustin, told The Times-News. Earlier this week, Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, visited the facility to see how the methane is produced.

Wayne Tolman, the plant’s manager, said the manure is pumped into large digester tanks. The tanks are then heated to about the temperature of a cow’s body. Naturally occurring bacteria then begins a chemical action, causing methane bubbles to rise to the top of the tanks.

Dustin said the cost of the methane plant is the same as a plant that produces electricity.

About 2,000 cows are the minimum needed to make such a project feasible, he said.

– Associated Press