Sludge Watch ==> Charleston: Ruinous Sludge Compost

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Again we see huge public dollars spent making sludge compost no one wants.
So why do we keep making this mistake?  Why did San Bernardino Planning
Commission just award Nursery Products a permit to open one of the largest
open air sludge composts sites in the world in benighted little Hinkley 
Calif?


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Editorial:
Another turn of the composter
Wednesday December 06, 2006

On Dec. 7, 1995, former Daily Mail Reporter Paul Owens reported that the 
Charleston Sanitary Board had moved "one step closer to building a huge 
composting facility to handle its sewage sludge and lawn waste."
Three years and $6 million later, this Rube Goldbergian biowaste processor 
was in place, taking in 500 to 1,000 tons of lawn clippings and treated 
sewage sludge a month.
It was supposed to save the city money by allowing it to avoid $40-a-ton 
tipping fees at the landfill.
The city looked forward to profits from bulk sales of its new product.
But by March 2, 2002, former Daily Mail reporter Deanna Wrenn wrote that 
Charleston had "a compost stockpile of four to six million pounds -- enough
to spread a 15- to 20-foot layer over a football field."
And the sanitary board couldn't even give away the compost that came out of 
the facility it had spent $6 million to create.
Not the most excellent economics.
In May of this year, after nine long years of financially ruinous and 
environmentally unsatisfactory composting, city officials discontinued 
operation of the facility. The sanitary board was still paying off more than 
$4 million worth of debt, and it would have cost the public $2.8 million 
more to keep the operation running.
But this week, the Chuckie of all municipal toys was back. The Daily Mail's 
Matthew Thompson reported that Charleston officials are "trying their hands
at the composting game again."
City Council agreed to pay the Sanitary Board $1,000 a month to compost 
leaves and wood chips collected by the city's vacuum trucks. If this 
sludge-free process works, said City Manager David Molgaard, the city could 
have a marketable product in three months.
Another triumph of hope over experience.
If the composter doesn't work this time, the city should stop abusing the 
public and keep it shut down.
And could the Legislature please revisit the science behind keeping 
biodegradables out of landfills and the sense of imposing $40-per-ton 
tipping fees on grass clippings and leaves?
Was biodegradation really worse than this mess?
Recycling sounds good, but it has to make both environmental and economic 
sense.
So far, the public has just been expensively had.
http://www.dailymail.com/news/Opinion/200612061/