Sludge Watch ==> The Milorganite Blues

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Troubled times for Milorganite.  High fuel costs for drying, lots of cities 
giving away free sludge pellets, (or paying people to take it), make it 
harder to justify making Milorganite.  In 2004 there were 16,308 tons of 
Milorganite was sent to Florida.  That's nearly half their production.

And I notice that in the past, lab tests for Milorganite were coming from a 
laboratory that was not accredited to do tests on sludge....wonder if that 
is still the case.  And Canada had to send back a batch of Milorganite 
because it was growing salmonella.  But the folks at Milorganite don't even 
bother to test for salmonella, so how is the company going to know whether 
the material it is sending to Canada complies with Canada's fertilizer 
requirements?  You see, the US allows a Class A sludge product like 
Milorganite to be contaminated with salmonella so long as it meets the fecal 
coliform counts.

So wash your hands.  Keep the kids away.  And golfers...?  You might want to 
keep your gloves on when you touch your balls.

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A greener future?

Fertilizer slowdown has MMSD pondering uses for sludge
By MARIE ROHDE

mrohde at journalsentinel.com
Posted: Sept. 13, 2006

Rod Johnson knew exactly what to do when the fairways at Pine Hills Country 
Club in Sheboygan looked scraggly this spring. He spread on Milorganite, the 
fertilizer that made Milwaukee famous.

Jenerio Mariano empties poorly sealed packaged bags of Milorganite into a 
hopper for repackaging at the bagging operation on Jones Island. Revenue 
from the fertilizer isnt enough to pay production costs, but in the past, it 
has been less expensive than taking the sludge to an incinerator or 
landfill.



Photo/Rick Wood

Large bags of Milorganite, stored at the bagging operation on Jones Island, 
are used at golf courses and other commercial sites. MMSD also offers 
smaller bags (shown on pallets on the background) of the fertilizer.

Quotable
The name has great value. You could say we are the Kleenex of fertilizer, 
the Kool-Aid of biosolids.

- Jeff Spence,
marketing director for Milorganite, on the possibility of selling the 
fertilizers name

Quotable
We are at a crossroads of sorts with Milorganite. There are a lot of 
questions about what is the most economically viable way to proceed.

- State Rep. Pedro Coln (D-Milwaukee),
chairman of the commission that oversees the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage 
District

Now, he has a lush, deep green carpet.

"There's some magic in that bag, as far as I'm concerned," said Johnson, 
who's been in the golf course management business for 25 years.

Eighty years ago, Milwaukee became the first community in the country to 
recycle its sewage as fertilizer. Now the future of Milorganite, the 
granddaddy of the industry, is uncertain.

Increasing competition from other cities, rapidly escalating energy costs 
and the loss of industries that provided nutritious waste have taken a toll, 
prompting some to ask if there are more cost-effective ways to dispose of 
sludge.

In addition, concerns have been raised by scientists that much of the 
anti-bacterial additives found in soap and other products are winding up in 
the sludge. It could, they say, be contributing to the growth of super bugs, 
antibiotic-resistant pathogens that could cause life-threatening illness. 
Scientists and government regulators agree that more study is needed on this 
aspect of sludge.

"We are at a crossroads of sorts with Milorganite," said state Rep. Pedro 
Colón (D-Milwaukee), chairman of the commission that oversees the Milwaukee 
Metropolitan Sewerage District. "There are a lot of questions about what is 
the most economically viable way to proceed."

A phenomenon is born
The city created a sewerage commission in 1913 to clean up its waterways. At 
about the same time, an English chemist was experimenting with a new process 
to purify wastewater that used air to bubble through the wastewater and 
separate the solids. Microscopic bugs ate the solids in the wastewater, but 
the problem was what to do with the dead bugs - the sludge.

Oyvind Juul Noer, a University of Wisconsin soil scientist, determined that 
not only was the sludge a better and cheaper fertilizer than what was then 
available, but it also didn't burn the vegetation if misapplied. His tests 
showed that turf treated with Milwaukee's sludge was denser and a darker 
green. Golf courses gobbled up the new product, and Milorganite was a hit.

The product name came from combining the words Milwaukee, organic and 
nitrogen (the product is 6% nitrogen).

Federal regulations adopted in the 1970s and '80s prompted communities from 
New York to California to recycle their sludge.

Rick Stevens, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's national biosolids 
coordinator, said an estimated 7.6 million tons of sludge will be produced 
nationwide this year, and 60% of it will be used as either fertilizer or as 
a layer spread over landfills at night to keep away rodents and birds. The 
rest will either be incinerated or buried.

While some communities, such as Houston, make fertilizer from sludge, those 
products haven't cut into the Milorganite market and would need to mount 
expensive marketing campaigns to approach the Milwaukee brand's recognition, 
said Jeff Spence, marketing director for Milorganite. What has hurt is that 
some competitors are giving away their treated sludge to former Milorganite 
customers, such as orange growers in Florida.

Cost concerns
High energy costs also have created concerns. Milorganite is produced at 
Jones Island in Milwaukee, where the wastewater treatment plant receives all 
of the effluent from the city, rich with industrial as well as residential 
waste. The sludge is tossed around in dryers for an average of 45 minutes a 
batch, reaching a temperature of 185 degrees.

Finally, production has dropped significantly from its peak in the 1960s and 
'70s, when it reached 71,000 tons a year. The loss of the breweries and 
other "wet" industry - most recently Lesaffre Yeast Corp. - has caused 
production to plummet in recent years.

The commission that oversees MMSD set the 2006 production goal at 41,000 
tons of Milorganite, and officials now say it will likely reach 35,000 tons. 
The fertilizer also recently has had trouble meeting its minimum nitrogen 
level because of the decline in waste from breweries and wet industries that 
had waste with high nitrogen content.

Considering other options
In the late 1980s, the district spent $200 million updating the plant where 
Milorganite is made. Since then, it's spent $14 million more on improvements 
and has budgeted $18 million for improvements that will be made by 2010. 
This is part of the taxpayer-supported sewerage district's annual budget.

No matter what the district does, it has to dispose of the sludge at the end 
of the treatment process. Other communities have burned it or buried it; 
until the 1980s, some dumped it in the ocean.

Milwaukee's fertilizer plant generated $5.5 million to $6 million in revenue 
a year - not enough to pay production costs, but less expensive than taking 
the sludge to an incinerator or landfill.

District officials aren't sure that will continue to be the case and are 
looking at other options.

One option being explored is burning the sludge to create energy, then using 
the glass-like remains of the sludge to resurface roads.

The potential cost and revenue are not clear, Colón said, adding that there 
could be significant costs in developing the technology.

Another option being considered is selling the Milorganite name. The 
district has been protective of the name, to the point where it sued a 
Pennsylvania manufacturer of a product with a similar name.

Other communities that are able to meet the nitrogen and iron standards 
would avoid huge marketing expenses if they could use the name that is 
already well-known, Spence said.

"The name has great value," he said. "You could say we are the Kleenex of 
fertilizer, the Kool-Aid of biosolids."

The district also is considering lowering the nitrogen and iron standards, 
he said.

The district's other option is to bury the solids with other garbage, Spence 
said, but state regulators are reluctant to allow that.

"We're probably the longest-running recycler out there," Spence said. "We 
want to create a beneficial reuse for the product."

But Spence acknowledged that some district officials are questioning whether 
developing the technology for new products - such as the product used in 
road paving - would be cost-effective.

"There have been questions raised about whether it's the most cost-effective 
way to go, and we're looking at it," Colón said. "But after all this time 
and all the money we've put into it, it would be hard to just abandon it."

10 Interesting Facts About Milorganite
1) 35,000 TONS
The heyday for Milorganite production was during the 1960s and 1970s, when 
more than 70,000 tons was sold; this year's estimate is 35,000 tons.

2) 63.6 POUNDS
This year, the sewerage district expects to produce 63.6 pounds of 
Milorganite for every man, woman and child living within its boundaries.

3) GOLF COURSE
In 1926, Milwaukee became the first municipality in the U.S. to recycle its 
sewage and use it as fertilizer; it became so popular, particularly among 
groundskeepers for golf courses, that Milorganite quickly became a household 
name.

4) WORLDWIDE
Worldwide sales of Milorganite mean that a little bit of you has fertilized 
soil in Singapore, Japan, Canada and across the U.S.

5) 4 BILLION TONS
About 4 billion tons has been sold over 80 years.

6) BLUES SMELL
The late John Consoer, local businessman and the leader of a Dixieland jazz 
band, wrote "The Milorganite Blues," a tune inspired by the odors from Jones 
Island, where the fertilizer is made.

7) 5-POUND BAG
You can buy Milorganite by the 5-pound bag or by the truckload.

8) $5.5 MILLION to $6 MILLION
While Milorganite is a $5.5 million to $6 million-a-year business, it's a 
stretch to say production of the fertilizer is profitable. The income merely 
offsets the cost of treating and disposing of the solid waste.

9) BUGS
The fertilizer isn't actually industrial and toilet waste; it's made up of 
the corpses of billions of microscopic bugs that eat the waste.

10) CAMEO APPEARANCE
If you look closely, you'll spot bags of Milorganite in the movie 
"Caddyshack."

Source: Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=497623