Sludge Watch ==> Sudbury Ontario tests chemicals used on sewage sludge

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin;

Is anyone familiar with the use of bioxide on sewage sludge ?  What impacts 
does it have?
Environmental impacts?

And wait till Sudbury and Coppercliff get a whiff of Toronto sewage sludge 
....the uber stench of Toronto's sewer slop has driven it  off farmland and 
out of a Michigan landfill.    But Toronto...still mesmerized by its fantasy 
that the sludge it finds too horrid, too filthy, to vile to manage in 
Toronto is a 'beneficial use' to some remote community.  And they better 
check on the pathogen reactivation factor...it may well be that sludge 
pathogens they thought they killed in the digester have reemerged in the 
millions while the trucks take the 6 hour drive from Toronto to Sudbury.


Stay tuned. Inco has apparently agreed to take some Toronto sludge...but a 
Ministry of Environment permit will be required.
..................................

www.northernlife.ca/News/LocalNews/2006/09-12-06-sewage.asp?NLStory=09-12-06-sewage

City tests chemicals used on sewage sludge

Date Published | September 12, 2006


Advertisement

City staffers are asking for money at a city council meeting Sept. 13 to 
test chemicals being used to reduce the smell of sewage sludge dumped in 
Inco's tailings.

The testing (by Pollutech) and consulting engineering services (by Dennis 
Consultants) will cost between $125,000 and $225,000, depending upon the 
final extent of laboratory testing required. The money will be taken from 
the 2005 Wastewater Plants Capital Budget.

The city disposes of its sewage sludge at Inco's Meatbird Lake tailings 
disposal area located west of Copper Cliff. The sewage sludge is hauled by 
tanker trucks from the city's wastewater treatment plants up to a central 
sludge transfer station located in the tailings area.

Historically, when a smell caused by hyrdogen sulphide gases was detected, 
Inco redirected their tailings discharge lines to cover any exposed sewage 
sludge, and lime was applied.

But those solutions didn't work in the summer of 2005, when there was a 
strong hydrogen sulphide smell in Lively and Copper Cliff caused by changes 
to the way Inco disposed of tailings, nearby construction and high 
temperatures.

Lime was applied with limited success. The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) 
ordered the city to solve the odour problem, and they began experimenting 
with calcium nitrate, commonly known as bioxide.

“The application of bioxide has had no adverse affect on Inco's tailings 
disposal operation and their chemical treatment runoff water downstream onto 
the tailings area,” according to a staff report written by city engineer 
Greg Clausen.

Bioxide was injected directly into the sludge transfer station, and the 
chemical was sprayed on areas of exposed sludge. Once the immediate odour 
problems were solved, bioxide was introduced at the waste water treatment 
plants instead of the sludge transfer station.

The MOE wants the city to do full-scale laboratory testing before they will 
consider final approval of the use of bioxide as a permanent solution.