[USCC] What to do with sludge

Mon Jul 3 12:04:44 CDT 2006

Stu,

I am an employee with the Washington State of Ecology and work with
waste water treatment facilities.  The agency has permitting
responsibility for the effluent, and, separately, with biosolids.  One
of my responsibilities is to deal with the land application of
biosolids.  We consider the stabilized solids that settle out of a waste
water treatment plant to be biosolids as opposed to sewage sludge.
Sludge would be untreated waste solids.  We view these differently
because the wwtp solids are not fecal material.  Notwithstanding some of
the alarmist claims written on this list serve, biosolids largely
consist of stabilized organic material from the microbial bug bodies
that process the raw sewage and settle out. 

The reason I am writing you is because of a plant inspection I conducted
a couple weeks ago at the Yakima Training Center; an Army training
facility in Yakima County, Washington State.  This facility is an old
design, a novel design that I thought was really effective and I had
never seen before.  It confirmed again my view that as a modern society
we often throw out old ideas when more "modern" stuff becomes available
and often, very effective, low energy, low material consumption methods,
are lost to history. 

The system to which I refer is what's generally known as a trickling
filter.  This idea is still utilized for small community plants in
various areas of the state.  Applicable for the 500-1000 population you
are interested in, it would just need to be sized appropriately.  The
basic principle is that the raw sewage comes into a holding tank of some
sort, sometimes it's mixed or aerated to some extent, and then trickled
over coarse gravel.  This gravel is usually about 2-4 cm round river
rock that's all the same size so the pore spaces are large and
consistent.  A biological community builds up on the surface of the
rocks and breaks down the sewage. The sewage is recycled over the rocks
a few times to meet some design holding period.  The thing about this
little facility was that it worked largely on gravity and a siphon.
This is quite different than many modern plants that are quite energy
consumptive.  I don't know the precise design, but essentially the
sewage flowed from a primary into a small intermediate tank and then was
siphoned into one of two rotating arms (metal pipes with holes on the
bottom-side that are mounted on a center pivot) that "trickled' the
sewage over the river rocks. The arms turn simply due to the force of
water flowing out through them under gravity. There is a need for a
small pump to recycle the material for better treatment, but the novel
thing was that the power could go off and the plant would still
function.  Sewage would drain into the intermediate tank, siphon off
into the rotating arms, break the siphon, refill the intermediate tank,
siphon again, and so on. It seemed like a system could be set up with
solar panels to provide power to the pump to periodically recycle the
sewage into the primary tank.  I'm sure there would be limitations on
pump size, time, and panel area, but for small facilities in countries
where no treatment is currently occurring, this seems like it could be
an excellent solution.

When I saw this, I immediately thought of how practical this could be
for remote communities where power is an issue.  The effluent from this
plant is very clean according to our Water Resources folks who permit
it.  So the system works well.  I asked the guys at the plant to show me
the schematic because I wanted to see exactly how it was set up.  They
looked around in a pile of old plans, but couldn't lay their hands on
it. The thing was built in 1950 or so. I'm sure I could get a copy
somehow.  Let me know if you're interested.

Maybe someone else on the list serve has the specific information on the
design of such a plant.   

Peter Severtson
Biosolids/Composting/Soils
Department of Ecology
15 West Yakima Avenue
Yakima, WA  98902
pser461 at ecy.wa.gov
(509) 575-2605

-----Original Message-----
From: compost-bounces at composter.com
[mailto:compost-bounces at composter.com] On Behalf Of stuti sharma
Sent: Monday, July 03, 2006 1:02 AM
To: US Composting Council Compost Discussion List
Subject: Re: [USCC] What to do with sludge

U.S. COMPOSTING COUNCIL 15th ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND TRADESHOW Wyndham
Orlando Resort | Orlando, FL | January 21-24, 2007 The National forum
for those involved in the development and expansion of the composting
and organics recycling industry CONFERENCE PROGRAM, REGISTRATION FORMS,
WORKSHOP AGENDAS, EXHIBITOR INFORMATION AND SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
ARE AVAILABLE AT THE USCC WEBSITE: www.compostingcouncil.org OR CALL THE
USCC AT 631-737-4931 

Hi everyone

Im working with an Indian environmental NGO and we are currently in the
process of accumulating data and creating nation wide networks on sewage
sludge management. It is currently not a very widespread practice in
India.
We are hoping to prevent waste dumping into oceans and water bodies that
leads to contamination. Any help from anyone regarding information or
contacts or initial documentaion regarding sewage management would be
greatly appreciated. Also any information on wheather small scale
treatment of sewage is possible for a community of 500 to 1000
households.

Thanks
Stu

On 6/20/06, C. Snyder <cgsnyder at post.harvard.edu> wrote:
>
> U.S. COMPOSTING COUNCIL 15th ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND TRADESHOW Wyndham 
> Orlando Resort | Orlando, FL | January 21-24, 2007 The National forum 
> for those involved in the development and expansion of the composting 
> and organics recycling industry CONFERENCE PROGRAM, REGISTRATION 
> FORMS, WORKSHOP AGENDAS, EXHIBITOR INFORMATION AND SPONSORSHIP 
> OPPORTUNITIES ARE AVAILABLE AT THE USCC WEBSITE: 
> www.compostingcouncil.org OR CALL THE USCC AT 631-737-4931
>
>
> This is to reply to Mike Morin's message about dumping sludge into the

> ocean.  There are much better 21st century solutions to dispose of 
> contaminated waste products, such as municipal sewage sludge, 
> beneficially, other than spreading it on healthy farmland or turning 
> it into "compost."
>
> Ultra-high thermal chemical decomposition of sludge is truly 
> beneficial without all the risks and uncertainties of land
application.
> This new  technology produces clean renewable energy;  unlike 
> incineration, it meets the strictest air emission standards anywhere; 
> and it  leaves a ceramic like material that can be used for
construction.
>
> These state-of-the-art gasification plants solve several  problems:
> they process  hard-to-handle contaminated waste; they produce clean 
> and renewable energy; and they protect public health and the
environment.
>
> Caroline Snyder
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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Ongoing Sponsors of the USCC Discussion list are:

Food Industry Environmental Network (FIEN), a regulatory and policy
e-mail alert service for environmental, food and agricultural industry
professionals.
Contact Jack Cooper 301/384-8287 JLC at fien.com --- www.fien.com

Renewable Carbon Management, LLC with the containerized, in-vessel
NaturTech Composting System www.composter.com rcm at composter.com

Non-members of USCC are encouraged to join the Council through our
website at: http://www.compostingcouncil.org/membership.cfm     For
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