Sludge Watch ==> Florida - Bradenton - sludge pellets used for daily cover in landfill

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Sludge is pelletized, trucked to landfill, and mixed with dirt to make a 
daily cover in landfill.
I can live with that.  At least they aren't polluting soil and contaminating 
the food chain.

In addition, by mixing the pellets with soil they address the spontaneous 
combustion issue.
No land applied sludge running off into the bay to hurt the pretty manatee.



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Posted on Thu, Jan. 25, 2007
With plant, county won't waste sludge
JAMES A. JONES JR.
The Herald

MANATEE - By the year 2008, Manatee County officials hope they no longer 
have to spread sludge on the ground to get rid of it.

A company is preparing to build a 9,610-square-foot plant at the Lena Road 
landfill that would handle sludge from all three county wastewater treatment 
plants. The sludge, the final byproduct of the treatment of sewage, would be 
completely dried out and converted into pellets for use as fertilizer.

It could be used for grass cover at the landfill and county parks and golf 
courses. Some of it could possibly be sold, said David Shulmister, Manatee's 
wastewater division manager.

Manatee's sludge - wastewater the consistency of gelatin - is now trucked to 
fields in Charlotte and Polk counties.

When it is converted into pellets, it will go through an additional drying 
process, killing virtually all remaining pathogens.

The county has awarded a $14.5 million contract to Andritz, a company based 
in Graz, Austria, for the plant.

"Our preliminary intent is to take the pellets over to the landfill, mix 
with dirt and then use for cover material to grow grass to cover the 
landfill," Shulmister said.

He compared the pellets to Milogranite, a gardening product made from sludge 
that is available in stores.

Andritz was the only company to answer Manatee County's request for bids, 
Shulmister said. The plant will be built near the southeast Manatee 
wastewater treatment plant on Lena Road.

"I believe they expect to start turning dirt sometime in February," said 
Shulmister.

Worldwide, Andritz has about 500 installations of its dryer technology, with 
the closest being in Pinellas County. "I expect the plant will be 
operational sometime around the second quarter of 2008," Shulmister said.

Under the Andritz system, sludge travels along a conveyer belt through a 
rotating drum, similar to a clothes dryer, three times as it is dried out 
and converted into pellets, Shulmister said.

Jim Rolston, director of utility operations for Pinellas County, said the 
Andritz system has been operational for about three years in his county.

The system is operated through a contractor, who sells the pellets to 
Florida farmers and some golf courses.

Pinellas elected to contract the work because it had no experience in 
marketing byproducts. "We don't sell to individual homeowners," Rolston 
said.

The county negotiated a contract for a percentage of the residuals from the 
sale of pellets, but it's not enough to offset the cost of the operation.

"The real reason we did it was so that we weren't applying the sludge to 
fields in Florida," said Rolston.

James A. Jones Jr., East

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/16537818.htm