Newspaper Page Text
THE SLUD
Is Biosolid Composting
44
ft
or “Brown
tt
i t's just a few days shy of Christmas when we visit the
Athens-Clarke County landfill out on Lexington Road. The
on/off mist descending from the grey above didn't quite
warrant a raintheck, and so we pull into the long driveway
and tum left towards the windrows: several columns of brown,
earthy material each one about six-feet wide, up to 14-feet
high and nearly 200-feet long. Each one emits plumes of
steam, a byproduct of the chemical reactions of composting;
this "chimney effect' steam rises and intermingles with the
low-hanging, slate-toned clouds.
Each of the windrows appears to consist of what's referred
to as "yard waste": the products of the ACC Solid Waste
Department's leaf and limb pickup program, all dirt and branch
material. But these massive piles of wood chips conceal a sub
stance that is the subject of some controversy: biosolids, the
re-branded, friendly-sounding term for sewage sludge. Biosolids
are what's left over after sewage is treated by
public utilities: a gelatinous, semi-solid mate
rial that has traditionally been landfill-bound
after being separated out from its wastewater
origins.
Gary Bond has run this composting opera
tion since it was being done at the county's
Bailey Street water treatment plant over 10
years ago; even then, Bond was selling his
compost as a soil amendment under the guide
lines of Georgia Environmental Protection
Division's Watershed Protection Branch. When
the Public Utilities Department elected to
rebuild and upgrade its facilities four years
ago, Bond's composting operation moved to
the landfill. Prior to that, only about 10 per
cent of ACC's biosolids were being composted.
After consolidating the composting with the
landfill, Solid Waste is composting nearly 100
percent of the county's sludge. And beginning
in 2011, under a new permit from the EPD's
land Protection Branch. Bond will again offer
his product to the public. "When I worked over
on Bailey Street, I couldn't keep it on hand,"
says Bond. "I had a lot of the public, some of
the local folks doing landscaping jobs, a lot of the ACC parks
[coming to buy the compost]. We couldn't keep it in stock
over there, and I feel the same thing is going to happen here
once we get the word out. It's good material; I've been using
it for years." He adds with a chuckle: "My yard looks like the
Botanical Gardens, man."
(ill McElheney, vice chair of the Northeast Georgia Children's
’Environmental Health Coalition, is among a number of local
(activists who take issue with the Solid Waste Department's
decision to sell biosolid compost to the public at large. "If
you've looked at San Francisco and the protest [over] that sew
age sludge compost—they found endocrine disruptors, flame
retardants... you have all these things that they just don't test
for," she says.
Other cases in places tike Baltimore have garnered atten
tion, with activists crying foul that public safety has been
potentially jeopardized by the reuse of biosolids. In an article
published in Daily Groceries' monthly newsletter The Radish,
environmental activist and hydroecologist Sydney Bacchus
pointed out that leaf and limb compost on its own is guaran
teed to be safe, while the action of combining it with sludge
has the potential to be harmful.
Many of the alarms raised by local activists stem from a
lawsuit filed and won by two Augusta dairy farmers in 2008.
Under advice from both the USDA and EPA, Andy McElmurray
and Bill Boyce directly applied sludge to their farmland, even
tually resulting in massive cattle die-offs. (In conjunction with
former EPA scientist David Lewis, McElmurray and Boyce have
also charged the University of Georgia Research Foundation
with supplying the EPA with faulty information about the
safety of land-applying sludge.) Suki Jannsen, the Solid Waste
Department's waste reduction administrator, is eager to dis
pel some concerns: "We've been compared to Augusta, where
they've land-applied. We're composting ours before it's even
allowed to leave the premises and [mixing] it with mulch.
It's two different processes." she says. "When you land-apply
biosolids, thats taking biosolids directly from the wastewater
treatment plant and placing them directly on the land. A lot of
farms do it in the United States, and there have been issues.
We re talking about composting... Once you compost it, you're
chemically changing what is in that mix.
"Composting is a chemical reaction. You've got chemical
and biological [processes] occurring in a compost pile. You're
changing the components, heating it, cooling it* a lot of
microbes take it in. and 'poop out a different mix—that's what
we want them to do. The compost is a soil amendment it's not
soil. You don't just go plant a tree in pure compost; it's too
rich for that.*
Jannsen finds comparisons to other communities regard
ing biosolids to be inappropriate. "Everybody's wastewater
is different" she says. "People in San Francisco have differ
ent wastewater constituents than we have here in Athens;
to as close to residential standards as possible before reaching
publ-c wastewater treatment plants. According to Gary Duck,
director of Public Utilities, "if they do not do that, there are
surcharges that they pay. They have to meet EPA standards,
and we pull samples of their wastewater on a regular basis to
see what they're discharging to us to see if they're in compli
ance with regulations."
"As far as the pathogens [in sewage-derived materials] go,
I'm sure a tot of folks would be worried... I would be, too,"
says Bond. "But not in this particular product here. I mean,
I make sure the temperatures get up where they need to be
for a good pathogen kill. As far as the heavy metals go, they
are way, way below [regulatory standards]—you can see our
results Some [regulated metals] are not even detected."
When Bond talks about seeing results, he means it liter
ally: all biosolid compost sold in Georgia is required by law
to be accompa d by a sheet listing its
constituents. "That's part of the permit that
we have and that's what's required," says Jim
Corley, director of ACC Solid Waste. "It clearly
shows what's in the material and what the test
results were." Since each batch is inevitably
different. Bond takes an average of three
tested batches of compost to arrive at what's
accounted for on the constituent listing.
An
Steam rises from the windrows at the ACC landfill: piles of compost containing a sewage byproduct known as
biosolids."
Baltimore is gonna have a heck of a lot different wastewater
components. You're talking heavy industry in those areas. We
don't have heavy industry in Athens.'
thich brings us back to the landfill for a took at
how biosolid-based compost is created. Bond, who
received certification for composting through the
Solid Waste Association of North America, explains the process
that each load of biosolids goes through.
Immediately upon arrival, the biosolids are laid out over a
six-inch layer of yard waste and then covered with more wood
chips; to look at the windrows, you would not see much, if any,
exposed sludge. From then on, the properties of the mix must
be fastidiously documented via temperature probes.
"It's almost a never-ending paper trail' says Bond. 'We're
required to meet 55 degrees Celsius for 15 consecutive days,
and within those 15 days, you're required to make five 'turns'
and still maintain that temperature." The "turns" are accom
plished every five days by a huge piece of machinery aptly
called a windrow turner, which runs over each row of compost
ing material and stirs it up. Each turn increases the porosity
of the mix, allowing the heat to be released in the "chimney
effect" of steam rising, pulling in cool air from the sides.
Following the required number of turns and having main
tained a consistent temperature, the material is put through
a massive power screen that sifts out anyfhinq larger than a
half-inch in diameter. The remaining compost—by this stage,
a crumbly humus-like material—is then left in piles to cure;
when it begins to cool, that is a signal that it can't be broken
down any further and has become biologically stable. Finally,
a sample is taken and sent off to be tested by the USDA. All
biosolid compost issued by the landfill is certified as Class A,
meaning it has been treated to reduce bacteria.
The individuals at Solid Waste are not unaware of the
concerns over biosolids. Local industries such as the Eaton
Corporation or the Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant have pre-treat
ment facilities that are expected to reduce their wastewater
additional concern voiced by
activists like McElheney is
the issue of hazardous liquid
runoff coming from the asphalt pad where the
windrows are set up. Says landfill assistant
director Brad Rickard: "All the runoff is treated
as leachate; it's not allowed to go back into
streams or anything like that. Leachate is the
liquid that circulates through trash; it has
to be treated very carefully—you can't let it
go. Thats the whole idea of modern landfills.
Because we have a leachate collection system
here, all [compost-derived water] is added
to that leachate. We also test that water,
and the last test was perfectly clean. Also,
we have additional groundwater testing in that area, too. We
test for different constituents, because it is a compost facil
ity, to ensure that nothing is leaving the site, surface water or
groundwater, whereas, in the past runoff was allowed to flow
freely into creeks [and] rivers.'
Now, Rickard insists, 'it's not fairty contained—it is
contained.'
The decision to implement the biosolid composting program
was arrived at following a presentation given by Jim Corley to
last year's Solid Waste Task Force, a city-ordained collective of
representatives from the University of Georgia, local industries
and businesses, d jrches, public schools and other organiza
tions. The task force, charged with arriving at new innovations
in waste reduction in Athens-Clarke County and co-chaired by
county commissioners Kelly Girtz and Doug Lowry (in whose
districts the landfill resides), was duly convinced that the pro
cess produced compost that was safe for public use.
However, for activists like Jill McElheney, leaving the cre
ation of standards and regulation up to government bodies on
the state and federal levels remains questionable. "The facility
is approved by Georgia EPD and is regulated by federal laws;
that's where all the loopholes ate," she says. It is certainly
worth noting that there is ample historical precedent for accu
rate regulation of environmental health lagging behind the
necessary public need. But in the immediate here and now,
Athens seems satisfactorily convinced that biosolid composting
is an acceptable component cf our waste reduction program.
Commissioner Doug Lowry also points out that the biosolids
compost program is only the beginning of waste reduction in
ACC: a long-term goal of diverting all organics to the windrows
has been eyed as well. But it's just one step among many,
including the upcoming single-stream recycling initiative, says
Suki jannsen. "We can't recycle everything; nobody can. No
place in the world can recycle everything, yet! We're hoping to
move in that direction, but we're not there yet."
Jeff Tobias
JANUARY 19, 2011- FLAGPOLE.COM 9
