Sludge Watch ==> Victoria BC - Sewage sludge destined for landfill

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Victoria British Columbia just runs its sewage into the ocean.  It is now 
planning to make sewage sludge and is looking at ways to manage this current 
and future wastewater sludges.

Note a few things about this story:

1.  they call the stuff they make "raw sewage sludge"....what is meant by 
that?  It comes out of the sewage treatment plant - so it is sewage 
sludge...aka 'biosolids'.

2.  the story says that farmers and the public don't like it because of the 
'human waste factor'.  Farmers and the public don't like sewage sludge 
because it is industrial waste mixed with human and animal fecal waste.

3.  sewage sludge can be used as fuel.  If there are good emissions controls 
incineration can restrict the release of mercury, dioxins, particulate, and 
of course kill the pathogens in the sludge.
Better yet, the Capital district should look at putting in green 
subdivisions...with homes that are not connected to 'big pipe' that mixes 
industrial waste into sewers.

................................


Peninsula's sewage sludge destined for landfill
Rob Shaw, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, October 25, 2007

Raw sewage sludge from a treatment plant on the Saanich Peninsula is 
temporarily being dumped into Hartland landfill after a contract to dispose 
of it at a Colwood mine fell through.

The Capital Regional District, which operates both the treatment plant and 
the landfill, says it can safely store the sewage sludge at Hartland with 
little or no environmental impact.

"It goes into the controlled waste area and is disposed of in clay cells and 
buried immediately after disposal," said Larisa Hutcheson, CRD manager of 
operations.
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The sludge is dumped in the same area as contaminated soil and other 
sewage-related waste already captured by screens at the region's two 
underwater ocean outfall pumping stations. Because it is organic waste, with 
fewer heavy metals or contaminants, it shouldn't pose an environmental 
problem as it seeps into the landfill's leachate stream, said Hutcheson.

Sludge is a normal byproduct of any sewage treatment process. The Saanich 
Peninsula Treatment Plant, which has been running since 2000, treats waste 
to a secondary level by screening the sewage stream, settling out some 
solids, and then pumping oxygen into a tank to hasten the natural organic 
breakdown.

The liquid waste is relatively clean and the resulting sludge was processed 
into a "Class A biosolid," which meant it was mostly free of pathogens. The 
CRD did have a contract to sell it to Lehigh Northwest Materials, where it 
was mixed with wood waste and sand and used as a topsoil to help remediate 
Producers Pit gravel mine in Colwood.

But Producers Pit is now for sale and no longer needs biosolid topsoil. 
Lehigh cancelled its contract with the CRD at the end of September.

Dumping the sludge into Hartland landfill is only temporary until the CRD 
starts a pilot project to mix the sludge with its own wood waste and sand, 
said Seamus McDonnell, senior manager of engineering and scientific 
services.

That topsoil can be used as layers in the landfill, and will help convert 
the methane gas the garbage produces into carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas 
that is  21 times less harmful than methane, said Hutcheson.

The pilot project does not yet have a budget, or approval, but can be paid 
for out of a $300,000 annual budget used to haul and dispose of biosolids, 
said Hutcheson.

The CRD's difficulty in finding a home for biosolids is likely to grow. The 
Saanich plant produces 3,000 tonnes of biosolids each year and with six 
sewage treatment plants planned for Greater Victoria, at a cost of $1.2 
billion, it is expected that 10 times that amount of biosolids will be 
generated. It is still unknown what the CRD plans to do with it.

In theory, biosludge can be refined into fertilizer to spread on 
agricultural land, but the "human waste factor" has largely turned North 
American farmers and neighbours (including those in the CRD) away from the 
idea, said McDonnell.

That revulsion has boosted calls to incinerate the sludge. Environmentalists 
argue it can be turned into synthetic gas.

Hamilton, Ont., approved a $60-million incineration plant in August to burn 
its sludge, calling it cheaper and better for the environment than spreading 
it as fertilizer. CRD officials have twice visited a treatment plant in 
Vancouver, Wash., that incinerates its waste and expressed interest in 
examining the technology.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=213f97f6-81c8-4292-a2ce-6c4227b8336d&k=47747