Sludge Watch ==> Nebraska: Another sludge composting site bites the dust

[Maureen Reilly]

Compost project ended

Lane Hickenbottom
Independent/Lane Hickenbottom (from left) Dave Lorenzen, James Simonson and 
Donnie Rowley talk while a truck gets filled with sludge in the solids 
handling facility at the Grand Island wastewater treatment plant. About 150 
tons of sludge is produced daily at the plant.



By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet at theindependent.com

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Lane Hickenbottom
Independent/Lane Hickenbottom (from left) Dave Lorenzen, James Simonson and 
Donnie Rowley talk while a truck gets filled with sludge in the solids 
handling facility at the Grand Island wastewater treatment plant. About 150 
tons of sludge is produced daily at the plant.


Lane Hickenbottom
About 150 tons of sludge is produced daily at the plant.

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Grand Island has ended its compost experiment at the wastewater treatment 
plant.
Instead the city will landfill the 150 tons of sludge produced daily at the 
plant. The sludge is a dirt-like by-product created after raw sewage has 
gone through a treatment process and had as much liquid as possible pressed 
out.

The sludge was formerly mixed with used straw from horse stalls at Fonner 
Park and corn stalks to create a compost.

Because the compost was identified as a cause of odor from the plant about 
two years ago, the city modified the compost operation into a pilot project 
for composting called aerated static pile.

The static pile was covered and then an air stream was pulled through the 
pile and cleansed before the air was released into the atmosphere.

But the aerated static pile was not cost effective, said Grand Island Public 
Works Director Steve Riehle.

He said there wasn't enough straw from Fonner and buying corn stalks as the 
bulking agent in the compost got too expensive.

Therefore after an 18-month aerated static pile experiment, the compost 
project was disbanded. The last batch of compost was completed in September 
and taken to area farmground as a fertilizer.

Riehle said the whole purpose of composting the sludge was too save money. 
When composting became more expensive because of the cost of the bulking 
agent, the city decided to end the project.

"It no longer made financial sense to keep the aerated static pile," Riehle 
said.

All of the sludge is now being hauled to area landfills.

Riehle said the Grand Island landfill receives about 60 to 90 tons of sludge 
a day, the Elba landfill receives 15 to 30 tons and the David City landfill 
receives the remainder.

A single landfill cannot handle the full load of sludge because its 
application at a landfill is also weather dependent, Riehle said. On wet, 
rainy days, the sludge must be more equally distributed among the landfills.

http://www.theindependent.com/stories/11062007/new_compost06.shtml