Parish’s sludge may be profitable
Published 12:00 am Friday, November 24, 2000
ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / November 24, 2000
LAPLACE – Sludge.
It’s not a pretty word, or a pretty subject, not to mention it’s pretty smelly, too.
But the residents of St. John the Baptist Parish generate between 15 and 20thousand tons of sludge a year, and parish officials have to figure out what to do with it.
Last week the St. John Parish Council took a step toward getting rid of thesludge in our wastewater treatment plants. The group approved an$800,000 contract with Fenton Environmental Technologies to install a system that would change all the sewerage and waste into what is called class-A sludge.
When treated, this material can be used as fertilizer, compost and in some cases, road beds.
The best thing about the contract is that Fenton will not only help the parish to treat the sludge, but it will buy it from at 50 cents a ton once it has been turned into class-A sludge.
Henry DiFranco, director of Public Works and Utilities for the parish, sees this as a win-win situation for the sewerage plants and the taxpayers.
“Currently, it costs us between $10 and 20 thousand a year to haul the sludge away to the landfill,” said DiFranco. “This drying process will eliminatethe cost of hauling it to the dump. Plus, we will get paid to have Fenton haulit away for us.”At the present time the parish puts the sludge on huge drying beds that filter out the water and dry out the sludge. DiFranco said this system is oldand needs repair, which would cost the parish about $35,000 per drying bed.
Recouping the sludge as class-A sludge would eliminate that cost also.
Oscar Boudreaux, consulting engineer for the parish on wastewater, said there are two ways to create class-A sludge. First there is chemical systemwhere you add lime to the sludge and that generates ammonia that not only dries it out, but kills the pathogens in the sludge. Secondly, one can applydirect heat to the sludge to dry it out and kill pathogens. The latter is whatFenton Technologies will provide for the parish.
The drying process reduces the sludge by about 75 percent, and the final product looks like dry soil.
Boudreaux said class-A sludge has been shown to be an amazing fertilizer. Aclass-A sludge system is in operation in Morgan City, and Boudreaux said he knows a farmer who used the sludge on his hayfields.
“The farmer increased his yield from 50 bales of hay to 500 bales,” said Boudreaux. “This is making something very productive out of waste.”Boudreaux said the Fenton method puts a lot of nutrients into the sludge and makes it very viable as fertilizer.
Boudreaux said class-A sludge is an industry in its infancy.
“Eventually, there will be a big market for it, and the parish will be the object of bidding for their sludge,” said Boudreaux.
Boudreaux said that eventually all wastewater in Louisiana will be turned into class-A sludge because of Environmental Protection Agency directives that are slowly moving all water treatment in the direction of sludge treatment.
According to Boudreaux there has been a lot of experimenting going on with sludge. Several oil companies are working on using treated sludge for loggingmud in their off-shore oil drilling operations. Several local governments aretrying to use sludge as filler for road beds.
After the parish takes delivery on the equipment, it will have to go out for public bids on construction. Boudreaux thinks the treatment plant will be inoperation by the end of the summer of 2001.
It will be constructed at the wastewater treatment plant on West Second Street behind the animal shelter because that is the biggest wastewater treatment facility in the parish.
However, the sludge process will handle the capacity of all the other wastewater treatment plants in the parish, plus there is room for growth.
Boudreaux said one of the advantages of the process is that it can be operated for long periods of time and run 24 hours a day, which will treat a lot of sludge.
“This is sized for the eventual growth of the parish,” said Boudreaux.
DiFranco said the parish is paying for the equipment with revenue from the sewer sales tax district.
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