Nearly 100,000 hybrid poplar trees on 180 acres near the Missoula Wastewater Treatment Plant are thriving on up to 20 percent of the effluent from the 12 mgd design/8 mgd average advanced treatment facility.“That’s a million gallons a day that isn’t discharged into the Clark Fork River,” says Starr Sullivan, superintendent of the Wastewater Division for this Montana city of 69,000.The trees were planted by hand in May 2014 as 10-inch whips, with only an inch or two poking out of the soil. By that September they were 7 feet to 10 feet tall. When they reach maturity by 2027,
