Sludge Watch ==> Lynchburg Virginia - may start to land apply limed sludge

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

http://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=LNA/MGArticle/LNA_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149189324942&path=

Lynchburg may enter the biosolids market


By Blair Goldstein
bgoldstein at newsadvance.com
July 22, 2006



Faced with diminishing landfill space for sewage sludge, officials at 
Lynchburg’s wastewater treatment plant are taking steps to begin producing 
land-applied biosolids.

The plans, while still exploratory, would be part of the city’s solution to 
ensure it has a cost-effective way to dispose of the sludge produced at the 
plant for years to come.

If Lynchburg enters the biosolids business, it will be the first area 
wastewater treatment plant to produce the fertilizer. Roanoke’s wastewater 
treatment plant has been generating biosolids for area farmers since its 
inception in the 1950s.

Lynchburg officials have brought environmental engineers to the plant’s 
Concord Turnpike site to plan how to produce the treated sewage sludge. The 
city also has accepted four companies as qualified vendors to haul the 
biosolids to crop, pasture and forest lands.

“I’m not expecting us to start land-applying in the next year,” said Alvin 
Rucker, superintendent of Lynchburg’s Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant. 
“If we do, it will be small scale to start getting the kinks out of the 
process.”

The plant treats wastewater from Lynchburg and portions of Amherst, Bedford 
and Campbell counties. It also treats septic waste from the three counties 
as well as Nelson and Appomattox counties. The plant currently treats its 
sewage sludge with lime to control the growth of pathogens and ships the 
waste to Lynchburg’s municipal landfill and another in Amelia.

But as the city works to join with nearby counties to create a regional 
solid waste authority, access to nearby landfill space may disappear.

For about two years, the cities of Lynchburg and Bedford as well as Amherst, 
Nelson and Campbell counties have been working to create a regional plan for 
solid waste disposal. The communities would keep one landfill open at time, 
and rotate use.

According to Dave Owen, Lynchburg’s director of public works, the city most 
likely will be the first host landfill when the authority goes into action 
in July 2008 or 2009. While Lynchburg is the host site, Owen said there 
would be room to bury the sewage sludge. However, when the site rotates to a 
surrounding locality, the plant would no longer have a convenient disposal 
site.

The city is considering producing land-applied biosolids or shipping the 
sludge to other landfills as solutions to the problem.

“The situation is, we’re just not happy and we’re looking for different 
options, especially once the regional landfill authority goes through and 
the landfill fills up and closes,” said Tim Mitchell, Lynchburg’s director 
of utilities. “Then we won’t have that option right there next to the 
plant.”

In April 2005, the city posted an advertisement asking interested 
waste-hauling companies to submit an application to spread Lynchburg 
biosolids. The city approved four companies as eligible vendors: Nutri-Blend 
Inc., Recyc Systems Inc., Synagro Mid Atlantic Inc. and Waste Management 
Inc. The companies are eligible to submit proposals to haul the sewage waste 
if Lynchburg asks.

Nurti-Blend and Synagro are currently spreading biosolids in Bedford and 
Appomattox counties. The free fertilizer has angered many area residents who 
say not enough is known about the impact of treated sewage sludge on the 
health of people and the environment.

In June 2005, the California-based engineering firm Brown and Caldwell 
visited the Lynchburg wastewater treatment plant to determine if 
land-applied biosolids could be produced using existing infrastructure.

The firm found that the city could “easily achieve” Class B biosolids, the 
type hauled to farms as free fertilizer, by simply adding more lime to the 
sewage sludge. No new equipment would be required.

The firm said it would be more difficult to produce Class A biosolids, the 
higher-grade fertilizer sold in stores. Brown and Caldwell said it would 
cost the city between $1 million and $1.25 million to upgrade its equipment.

If Lynchburg follows the engineering firm’s recommendations, it will produce 
lime-stabilized biosolids. The common treatment process calls for a lime 
additive to raise the pH level of the sludge, which makes it more difficult 
for organisms and pathogens to grow.

The plant currently adds small amounts of lime to its sewage sludge before 
disposing of it. As neighbors living near Lynchburg’s landfill have found, 
the lime additive can create a strong odor.

In July 2000, Lynchburg officials petitioned the Virginia Department of 
Health to allow the city to use less lime in the sludge it sends to 
landfills to reduce the odor wafting into nearby neighborhoods.

According to a letter from city officials to the state health department 
dated July 17, 2000: “… once the sludge leaves the plant enroute (sic) to 
the landfill for ultimate disposal, the odors escape into the neighborhood. 
This issue has become very politically sensitive and the City believes … 
that a reduced lime dosage will provide a much needed relief to this highly 
volatile issue.”

Since all of Lynchburg’s sludge was buried in landfills and not used as 
land-applied biosolids, the state health department allowed the city to cut 
back on the lime additive “in order to reduce the emission of odorous 
compounds.”

The Brown and Caldwell biosolids plan calls for Lynchburg to increase the 
amount of lime back to its former level.

Rucker said the odor should not be as big of a problem when the biosolids 
are spread on rural land.

“On farms, they plow it in right after (the spreading is) done,” he said. 
“They don’t necessarily drive through it and mix it with other stuff. In a 
landfill it has to be mixed with other trash and residue.”

No Lynchburg-area wastewater treatment plant currently produces biosolids. 
Surrounding counties operate smaller wastewater treatment facilities, where 
it is more cost effective to send the sludge to landfills.

The city of Bedford as well as Bedford and Campbell counties send their 
sludge to local landfills. Appomattox County uses a septic system.

“Most of these are very, very small (plants) and what little sludge there 
is, is pumped out and hauled,” said Willie Jones, director of Bedford County 
Public Service Authority.

Lynchburg’s regional plant produces more sewage sludge that surrounding 
localities.

In 2004, the plant put more than 19,700 wet tons of sewage sludge into 
landfills.

“I don’t look for us going to 100 percent land application in the next year 
or so,” said Rucker. “It could happen (soon); it just depends on a lot of 
variables.”