Greenport has composting woes
To proceed or delay -- that is the question
1 comments below
Southold composts only yard debris, some of which generates the leaf compost shown here. The town facility does not handle the sewer system sludge Greenport would process.
Greenport's sludge is filled with heavy metals and toxins and that's why Village Board members should shun a proposal to build and operate a composting plant that would only cause problems, said Bill Swiskey, a former trustee and ex-utilities chief.
Current utilities chief Jack Naylor has another view. He believes the sludge that would result after treatment at the planned upgraded wastewater treatment operation would have none of those toxic elements and feels a composting plant would both save the village money and present opportunities to make money.
Solid waste coordinator Jim Bunchuck is dwarfed by piles of the double-ground compost available there, which he says many users prefer.
"Believe me, this is not a good deal and you people better think hard and fast before you do this," Mr. Swiskey said at Monday night's Village Board meeting. Sludge that currently goes into lagoons in Greenport Harbor to be pumped out and transported to Bergen Point in West Babylon for processing does contain the toxins about which Mr. Swiskey warns.
But the nature of the sludge that would result from the upgraded wastewater treatment plant is unknown and can't be tested until it's created once the sewer plant upgrade is completed, Mayor David Nyce told Mr. Swiskey. Still, the upgrade is all about treating components so they don't pollute the water, enabling Greenport to meet state Department of Environmental Conservation and federal Environmental Protection Agency standards.
Mr. Naylor points to the town of Waterville, N.Y., where he first learned about the composting operation he's proposing for the village. In 2008, Waterville was recognized by the EPA for its outstanding and creative technological achievements in waste-water treatment and pollution abatement in Region 2.
Mr. Naylor envisions a similar operation in Greenport that could be built at no cost to the village, but save $75,000 a year in sludge treatment costs. It could even generate income as the only sludge composting operation in the area offering its services to other municipalities, he said.
While he traveled to Waterville to see the sludge composting operation, Mr. Naylor hasn't spoken to Jim Bunchuck, Southold's solid waste and recycling center director and a Greenport resident, about the leaf and yard debris composting operation he runs. Mr. Bunchuck agreed to speak with The Suffolk Times about his experiences with composting.
"It's not a panacea," he said. "It's not something you would jump into; there is a learning curve."
Mr. Bunchuck said he is pleased with the $200,000 he expects the town to see in sales of composting material this year, but he has experienced bumps along the way.
Sludge composting is a whole different animal than the leaf and yard debris his workers process at the Cutchogue site. DEC requirements are more strict when dealing with sludge wastes and the approval process is more complex, Mr. Bunchuck said.
Even dealing with yard waste, he has had to test source materials coming into Cutchogue to assure they don't contain elements he doesn't want. He has turned down some contract offers with other municipalities that wanted to process their debris here because it didn't meet his standards. He abandoned efforts to process grass because of its odors.
Mr. Naylor told Village Board members that odors would be contained within a composting plant. Mr. Bunchuck said inside composting should cause less odor problems, but he added, "It's a an issue at most compost sites."
Not only are there more complexities in gaining regulatory permits to operate a sludge-based composting facility, but the DEC also imposes limits on where the sludge can be used, Mr. Bunchuck said.
East Hampton created a composting system for its garbage that didn't work and the town ended up using the large building for yard waste instead because they lacked an adequate separating system to handle the garbage, he said.
From Mr. Swiskey's vantage point, Greenport is "rushing this thing through" and it will meet the same fate as the now defunct scavenger waste plant.
"Get rid of this thing," he advised. "You could put yourselves at risk.
The only board member to publicly express concerns about the idea is Trustee Chris Kempner, who said she doesn't necessarily object, but feels she has too little information to make a decision and is cautious about moving forward without more answers.
Despite the financial steps taken to date, the village hasn't committed itself to pushing forward with a composting operation. But Village Board members will hold a public hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, at either the Third Street Firehouse or Village Hall to hear from residents before making a decision.
jlane@timesreview.com
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Class A sewage sludge biosolids compost : 11/21/2009
Village Board members are to be commended for recognizing that Greenport sludge is filled with metals and toxins. Utilities Chief Jack Naylor is misinformed if he thinks a new wastewater treatment plant will remove those hazardous wastes.
To the contrary, the function of a sewage treatment plant is to clean up the sewage effluent sufficiently so it can be discharged to surface waters. But all the pollutants are reconcentrated in the sewage sludge. The better the treatment - the dirtier the sludge.
Furthermore, there is little or no market for Class A sewage sludge bisolids compost. (file available upon request) And in recent years, a new wrinkle has developed with sludge:
The US EPA has known since 2005 that BOTH CLASS B AND CLASS A sludge biosolids can contain infectious human and animal prions.
Earlier this year, the University of California at Santa Cruz announced that Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are prion diseases. The over 5.3 million AD and PD victims, along with Creutzfeldt Jakob victims, shed infectious prions to public sewers in their blood, urine and feces. The wastewater treatment process reconcentrates the prions in sewage sludge. The US EPA acknowledges that no wastewater treatment process inactivates prions. Animal sources of infectious prions in sewage are BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy - mad cow disease), Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, elk and moose, Scrapie in sheep and goats... from abattoirs and meat packing plants, butcher shops, taxidermy, veterinary facilities, landfill leachates to POTWs, etc
Thus, your Class A sludge biosolids compost may NOT be pathogen free. Do you really want to promote this stuff for home use on lawns, flower and vegetable gardens, where family pets can roll in it and track it indoors on their feet and fur? And children, with their hand-to-mouth eat-dirt behavior will be playing in it?
Japan and Europe are leading the way in development of facilities to utilize sewage sludge as a valuable resource to generate clean, renewable power, electricity, energy. Biomass technology is booming in Europe. And many cities in the United States are utilizing cutting edge thermal technologies to get the sludge off the land, and out of the landfills, and into the environmentally friendly, cost effective production of power and electricity, including Sanford, FLA, Stamford, CT, St. Paul, MN, PG&E in CA, Akron, Ohio; Schenectady, NY; Texas A & M, Lake County, Ill; etc. (details available upon request).
Helane Shields, PO Box 1133, Alton, NH 03809 sludge researcher since 1996 hshields@worldpath.net www.sludgevictims.com
Victims of Class A sludge biosolids: www.sludgevictims.com/Class-A-sludge.html
Toxins in sewage sludge: www.sludgevictims.com/toxic_in_sludge.html
Prions in sewage sludge: www.sludgevictims.com/pathogens/prion.html
Clean energy alternatives to landspreading sludge biosolids:
www.sludgevictims.com/clean-alternatives.html
