Decatur learns of possible improvements to sewage treatment process

DECATUR - On a beautiful Wednesday morning, all was quiet at the Decatur waste-water treatment plant. Suddenly, a low-pitched drone began to fill the air. The noise was from a new piece of equipment that has the potential for becoming a money maker for the city of Decatur.

On July 31, 40 visitors turned out for a demonstration of the Bioset Process built by Schwing Bioset, of Summerset, Wis. It is a traveling unit the Schwing company uses for a hands-on demonstration of the potential benefits this machine can offer to a community.

According to Tom Welch, southeast regional sales manger for Schwing Bioset, “We can take material out of the waste-water plant after the watering phase, take the solids, bring it to our operation, add quicklime and some other chemicals to the process. We raise the temperature, kill the pathogens and meet theEPA (Environmental Protection Agency) class A UP product.”

James Boston, director of public works for the city of Decatur, said, “Currently the waste-water plant is a Class B operation. We have to pay to ship waste to a facility that handles this kind of disposal. If we can change over to a Class A operation, this would cut the cost of trucking it out of state.”

“The advantage to the city here and to the municipality is they are paying a lot of money to haul this material away long distances,” Welch said. “The product we produce has a very good value from a fertilizer stand point and a number of the local farmers can purchase this product and manage the product and can replace higher chemical fertilizers that they currently buy.”

Surprisingly, the Bioset Process takes only 40 minutes to complete and is completely odorless. The cost of the chemicals, quicklime and sulfamic acid, is low enough that the city could stand to earn additional revenue from the sale of the fi nished product.

“When we purchase this machine, Decatur can recover the cost of the machine in three or four years. After that, the city can make money off of sales of this product to area farmers,” Boston explained.

According to Welch, the unit currently in operation at the Decatur facility is much larger then the city would need. This Bioset Process is designed to work in waste-water plants fi ve times larger then what Decatur plant is. “The unit this city needs for its facility is much smaller than the demo unit,” Welsh said.

When watching the operation of Bioset Process, one cannot help but see the potential longterm benefit to the city of Decatur. Changing from a Class B to a Class A operation can cut costs by eliminating transportation of waste material and generate revenue, making it nothing but a win-win situation for the city.

The Bioset Process is the gold key that unlocks a brighter future for the waste-water treatment plant and the city of Decatur.

News, Pages 1 on 08/14/2013