House Environmental Committee Hearing Explores Sewage Sludge As Energy Source

Rep. Camille “Bud” George (D-Clearfield), Majority Chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, said a public hearing this week explored innovative uses for sewage sludge, including as an energy source.

“Communities have grappled for decades to protect their citizens from sludge applications that remain unwanted, scientifically suspect and linked to health problems,” said Rep. George. “The hearing provided a glimpse of a Pennsylvania where convenience does not trump the public’s health and peace of mind.”

Paul Herb, superintendent of the wastewater treatment plant in Exeter Township, Berks County, testified that the municipality is pursuing a $7 million sludge-drying facility as a solution to rising landfill disposal costs that hit $650,000 in 2008.

“Processing sludge through a sludge dryer will reduce operating costs for all and will provide an opportunity to convert a waste product into energy,” Mr. Herb said.

Drying sludge reduces pathogens and odors and has the potential to reduce the town’s disposal costs by 80 percent, provide a cleaner fuel source to power plants, boilers and cement kilns. Methane produced in the drying process also at can be recycled to help power the plant, according to testimony.

“I am confident the effort Exeter has spent will not only benefit its residents and business, but will benefit others in Pennsylvania once they hear about the economic and environmental benefits of using biosolids fuel, especially if additional incentives can be added,” Mr. Herb said.

George M. Myers, superintendent of the Milton Regional Sewer Authority in Northumberland County, and E. Charles Wunz, a consulting engineer, discussed efforts to make the Milton treatment plant the first in the nation to be energy independent, create renewable fuel and energy and possibly eliminate sludge that must be disposed of at landfills or applied to land.

The $35.8 million wastewater-to-energy project would employ a hybrid, anaerobic sludge-treatment process that would produce a mostly methane biogas. The biogas would produce 1.2 megawatts of electricity that would power the plant and be sold to the regional power grid. The process also would produce dry biosolids that would be sold as a renewable fuel.

The officials noted that the 54-year-old plant incurs $400,000 annually in electric costs, which soon will increase under deregulation. The plant also produces and ships 10,400 tons of sludge annually to a landfill, costing another $400,000.

“The reasons for you to support the Milton project and adopt it as a model are to demonstrate that treatment processes can produce zero biosolids that otherwise would need to be disposed of and can produce renewable energy and renewable fuels,” the officials said in their presentation. “It can be done!”

Dr. Murray McBride, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, said pretreatment programs have reduced some heavy metals but do not address most of today’s pollutants.

“Sludge management is a very costly part of the wastewater treatment system, and application as a soil amendment is often the cheapest option,” according to Dr. McBride’s written testimony.

“But it is one that presents risks to people, animals and the health of our soils.

“I believe that spreading sludges as currently regulated and enforced represents a serious risk to the health of neighbors, to the health of our agricultural soils and to the environment,” said Dr. McBride, a soil scientist. “…Until we can clean up our sludges, monitor them stringently and develop and enforce protective rules, we should find ways to manage or dispose of them that do not spread them where we grow food, live and play.”

Andy McElmurray testified how he began applying sludge in 1979 to his farm near Augusta, Ga., after he was assured that the sludge was safe.

“In 1998, after hundreds of heads of cattle sickened and died, we learned that Augusta’s sewage sludge contained extremely high levels of hazardous waste that were toxic to dairy cattle,” Mr. McElmurray said. “…We have lost millions of dollars in property value, property and agricultural products.”

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Agriculture Department to compensate him for the 1,730 acres that he considered to be “poisoned” because of biosolids on his fields.

“Our dairy, which was once one of Georgia’s most productive dairy farms, was destroyed by the heavy metals, PCBs, chlordane, and other hazardous wastes that local industries dumped into Augusta’s sewer system,” Mr. McElmurray said.

Rep. George is the author of House Bill 1341, the Sewage Sludge Testing Act, which would:

-- Enable local governments to have tests performed on sludge properties with the costs paid by the entity that applied the sewage sludge, the sludge transporter, or the landowner;

-- Permit the state Department of Environmental Protection to test sludge sites upon receipt of a written complaint; and

-- Require the DEP to catalog the complaints and the test results.