Biosolids SPOTLIGHT

Biosolids SPOTLIGHT: A focus on the people of biosolids who work in our region

SPOTLIGHT on Biosolids Users

Our commitment to RESOURCE RECOVERY is only as genuine as we have people out in the field using our biosolids products for soil improvement and plant growth. The May SPOTLIGHT is on these "customers" of biosolids who every day are working on projects to put biosolids to good use. Four profiles are offered below, but we hope to have many more in the future.

RODNEY HOPKINS

Strong client relations and premium compost are two key ingredients to Rodney Hopkins’s success with Innovative Turf Application and Consulting (ITAC), a company he founded outside of Richmond, Virginia. ITAC is a premiere turf company, with a highly trained staff, offering services tailored to turf demands of athletic fields. ITAC has had success with its use of McGill SoilBuilder Premium Compost in sports field management. According to Hopkins, the biosolids-based compost positively impacts soil structure which in turn improves moisture retention, producing a result that both ITAC and its customers quickly realized as a major benefit and positive alternative to synthetic products. ITAC counts some of the best athletic fields in Virginia as its clients, with a strong focus on building and maintaining the best athletic fields, utilizing biosolids based product as a key part of that success.

PETER PRICE

Peter Price, raised on a beef and veal farm in rural Bradford County, Pennsylvania, is the ultimate biosolids guy. He is a big biosolids user, with his father and siblings moving the family farm operation from that of hay purchaser to that of hay seller, through the great yields afforded by biosolids pellets. He is also a biosolids expert, serving as Technical Services Manager for Synagro in Maryland and Pennsylvania, where he and his team (Corinne Darragh, Daniel Rohe, Amy Welker and Kevin Smeltz) are responsible for land base management, permit and registration processing, regulatory compliance, and community relations. In his spare time, Peter keeps bees, scuba dives, and works toward his private pilot license. He resides in East Coventry, Chester County, with his wife Natasha and their three sons – Rowan, Peyton and Braeden.

LEROY ZIMMERMAN

Leroy Zimmerman is owner of Custom Ag Service, LLC, a company out of Marietta, PA, that applies lime and manure for farmers in Pennsylvania. Importantly for the biosolids profession, Leroy has applied biosolids to farms in eastern Pennsylvania for well over 30 years. He has recently been spreading heat-dried biosolids pellets, using equipment of his own design that reduces dust release. He has been a key part of the distribution program for the Clean & Green Recycling Corporation, a merchant dryer operation in Lindenhurst, Long Island, NY. Leroy has been providing pellets to farmers in the northeastern quadrant of Pennsylvania, which is not as over-supplied with manure as is the southcentral region. He works with biosolids specialist, Diane Garvey, Garvey Resources, Inc, under a distribution program authorized by PADEP General Permit 7 for Exceptional Quality Biosolids. Diane provides Leroy support with compliance with nutrient management, notification, recordkeeping and reporting requirements.

MARK YOUNKINS

Mark Younkins connects the anaerobically digested cake produced by Capital Region Water AWTF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with farmers such as Mahlon Lapp, in Lancaster County. Although the son of health care professionals in State College, Mark was instead inspired to seek a career that offered time in the outdoors and in agriculture, and thereby completed a soil science option in the Environmental Resource Management program at Penn State. Mark found a great match with the biosolids services offered by his employer, Material Matters, Inc. Mark’s role is to provide the logistics of matching the farmer’s windows of landspreading opportunity with truck deliveries, WRRF cake production with field staging or on‐farm storage. He also oversees biosolids spreading at the farm sites under Pennsylvania’s General Permit, flagging of field setback boundaries, setting biosolids application rates, and complying with recordkeeping and regulatory requirements. In a real sense, Mark makes the connection between biosolids and soil.

SPOTLIGHT on Sustainable Environment Research Laboratory

Had the coronavirus pandemic not torpedoed the WEF Residuals and Biosolids Conference early April, many of us would have witnessed the outpouring of great research of the Sustainable Environment Research Laboratory (SERL), Virginia Tech’s northern campus. SERL is closely working with utilities and consulting firms to develop innovative environmental technologies and prepare a quality workforce capable of solving real world problems. With some luck, WEF will offered again these SERL papers:

“Anaerobic digestion process intensification using temperature-phased anaerobic digestion and thermal hydrolysis”
“Effect of thermal hydrolysis pretreatment on recalcitrant dissolved organic nitrogen contents quantified after anaerobic and aerobic treatment”
“A comprehensive examination of the dewaterability of aerobic granular sludge cultivated in continuous flow bioreactors fed with real domestic wastewater”
“Identification of Source and Cause of the Biosolids Odor Emission in Western Branch Water Resource Recovery Facility of Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission”
“A comprehensive examination of the dewaterability of aerobic granular sludge cultivated in continuous flow bioreactors fed with real domestic wastewater”
“Effect of THP and Anaerobic Digestion on the Dewatering Behavior of WAS and Primary Biosolids”

Leading the amazing work at SERL is Dr. Zhiwu (Drew) Wang, Ph.D., P.E., Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 9408 Prince William St. Manassas, VA 20110-5670, Phone: (703) 361-5606 Ext. 119,: [email protected]. Dr. Wang’s research portfolio focuses on the development of advanced municipal sludge management technologies for intensifying anaerobic digester capacity^1,2, mitigating biosolids odors^3,4, enhancing cake dewaterability^3,5-7, recovering nutrients^5,6, mitigating emerging contaminants^8,9, etc. His studies provide insight into engineered processes specifically designed for wastewater treatment^10,11 and value-added bioproducts recovery^12,13. Most importantly, Dr. Wang is seeding our profession with many new scientists.

Here are the several new biosolids researchers:

Dr. Dian Zhang ([email protected]) joined Dr. Wang’s team back in 2017. He just successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Effects of process intensification techniques on biosolids management“ in March and will join Stantec’s Fairfax office as a civil engineer in June. During his Ph.D. study, Dr. Zhang worked with Arlington Water Pollution Control Plant, Alexandria Renew Enterprises, and Upper Occoquan Service Authority (UOSA) to investigate: Effect of solids retention time, shear force, and storage time on the polymer consumption, odor emission, and sludge dewaterability³; Recalcitrant dissolved organic nitrogen formation in thermal hydrolysis pretreatment⁸; Using cerium chloride to control soluble orthophosphate concentration and improve the dewaterability of sludge^5,6; and Kinetic modeling of the anaerobic digestion⁴

Dr. Yewei Sun ([email protected]) joined Dr. Wang’s team back in 2016. He just successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Advanced Biofilm and Aerobic Granulation Technologies for Water and Wastewater Treatment” in March and will join Hazen & Sawyer’s Fairfax office as Scientist in June. Dr. Sun performed his Ph.D. research in Upper Occoquan Service Authority (UOSA) on the topic of aerobic granular sludge which holds promise to revolutionize the wastewater and biosolids industry for its advantageous settleability¹⁰ and dewaterability⁷ over the traditional activated sludge.

Mr. Jeffrey Nicholson ([email protected]) joined Dr. Wang's team as a PhD student in 2019. He received his B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Virginia Tech. Jeff is working with both the Hampton Roads Sanitation District (HRSD) and Matt Higgins at Bucknell University. His research is focused on identifying the parameters and fundamental mechanisms that control the dewatering and polymer demand of biosolids with respect to the effects of biological phosphorus removal, thermal hydrolysis pretreatment and anaerobic digestion.

Mr. Hao Luo ([email protected]) joined Dr. Wang’s team as a Ph.D. student in Spring 2019. He received his B.S. in Environmental Science from Kunming University of Science & Technology in 2014 and his M.S. in Science & Technology from Southeastern Louisiana University in 2017. Hao has been working with Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) on the research to identify the source and cause of the biosolids odor emission in the Western Branch Water Resource Recovery Facility. He is also working on a project funded by Virginia Tech Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science on the topic of biomass phosphorus recovery and immobilization to be used as slow-releasing fertilizer.

Mr. Jiefu Wang ([email protected]) joined Dr. Wang’s team as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2019. He received his B.E. in Environmental Engineering from Beijing University of Chemical Technology in 2017 and M.E. in Water, Waste & Environmental Engineering from University College Dublin in 2018. He is continuing Dr. Dian Zhang’s effort on the topics of process intensification of anaerobic digestion through temperature phased anaerobic digestion and/or thermal hydrolysis pretreatment in collaboration with Arlington Water Pollution Control Plant and Alexandria Renew Enterprises. Meanwhile, Jiefu is also making effort to understand the effect of cationic polymer on the performance of microbial communities in anaerobic digesters as a result of thermal hydrolysis pretreatment.

Mr. Zhaohui An ([email protected]) joined Dr. Wang’s team as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2018. He received his B.E. in Environmental Engineering from Tongji University in 2017 and M.S. in Civil Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign in 2018. Zhaohui is working with Loudoun Water to understand the potential impact of the recalcitrant dissolved organic nitrogen formation as a result of the thermal hydrolysis on the Loudoun Water reclamation plant operation.

References:

1. Xu, F., Wang, Z.-W., Tang, L., and Li, Y., 2014. A mass diffusion-based interpretation of the effect of total solids content on solid-state anaerobic digestion of cellulosic biomass. Bioresource technology, 167: 178-185

2. Xu, F.Q., Li, Y.B., and Wang, Z.W., 2015. Mathematical modeling of solid-state anaerobic digestion. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 51: 49-66

3. Zhang, D., Strawn, M., Broderick, T., Novak, J., and Wang, Z.D., 2020. Effects of anaerobic digester solids retention time on odor emission and dewaterability of biosolids subjected to various shear intensity, polymer doses, and storage duration. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EW00028K

4. Zhang, D., Strawn, M., Novak, J.T., and Wang, Z.W., 2018. Kinetic modeling of the effect of solids retention time on methanethiol dynamics in anaerobic digestion. Water Research, 138: 301-311

5. Zhang, D., Angelotti, B., Schlosser, E., Novak, J.T., and Wang, Z.W., 2019. Using cerium chloride to control soluble orthophosphate concentration and improve the dewaterability of sludge: Part II. A case study. Water Environment Research: 92 (3): 331-337

6. Zhang, D., Angelotti, B., Schlosser, E., Novak, J.T., and Wang, Z.W., 2019. Using cerium chloride to control soluble orthophosphate concentration and improve the dewaterability of sludge: Part I. Mechanistic understanding. water Environment Research: 92 (3): 320-330

7. Zhang D., Sun Y.W., Angelotti B., and Z.W., W., 2020. Understanding the dewaterability of aerobic granular sludge formed in continuous flow bioreactors treating real domestic wastewater: is it really better than that of the activated sludge? . Journal of Water Process Engineering (Accepted)

8. Zhang, D., Feng, Y., Huang, H., Khunjar, W., and Wang, Z.-W., 2020. Recalcitrant dissolved organic nitrogen formation in thermal hydrolysis pretreatment of municipal sludge. Environment International, 138: 105629

9. Sun, Y., Angelotti, B., Brooks, M., Dowbiggin, B., Evans, P.J., Devins, B., and Wang, Z.W., 2018. A pilot-scale investigation of disinfection by-product precursors and trace organic removal mechanisms in ozone-biologically activated carbon treatment for potable reuse. Chemosphere, 210: 539-549

10. Sun, Y., Angelotti, B., and Wang, Z., 2019. Continuous-flow aerobic granulation in plug-flow bioreactors fed with real domestic wastewater. The Science of the total environment, 688: 762-770

11. Sun, Y., Vaidya, R., Khunjar, W.O., Rosenfeldt, E.J., Selbes, M., Wilson, C., Bott, C.B., Titcomb, M., and Wang, Z.-W., 2019. Mathematical modeling of biologically active filtration (BAF) for potable water production applications. Water research, 167: 115128

12. Yu, D., Sun, Y., Wang, W., O’Keefe, S.F., Neilson, A.P., Feng, H., Wang, Z., and Huang, H., 2020. Recovery of protein hydrolysates from brewer’s spent grain using enzyme and ultrasonication. International Journal of Food Science & Technology:

13. Wang, Z.-W., Hamilton-Brehm, S.D., Lochner, A., Elkins, J.G., and Morrell-Falvey, J.L., 2011. Mathematical modeling of hydrolysate diffusion and utilization in cellulolytic biofilms of the extreme thermophile Caldicellulosiruptor obsidiansis. Bioresource technology, 102(3): 3155-3162

Spotlight August 2020 - Biosolids Agency Producers

This month’s SPOTLIGHT is on public agencies that have built and maintained their own biosolids utilization program, in which the lead public employee arranges biosolids deliveries directly with the users. The programs are imaginative, flexible, and responsive to the “customer,” providing a tangible connection between town and farm. While no cost comparisons have been made, a reasonable inference is that these programs are cost-effective. Here are the public employees who make this happen.

Dan Reed -

Dan Reed, Site Manager at Landis Sewerage Authority ([email protected]). The Landis Sewerage Authority (LSA), a uniquely “zero-discharge” WRRF in Vineland, New Jersey, developed in 1987 its publicly owned, 387-acre Agricultural Facility for biosolids recycling, and Dan Reed has been for the entire time. Dan studied chemistry at Stockton University in the mid-’80s, and while working as a student under Mike Wardell (formerly a biosolids consultant to LSA and for a time MABA’s executive director) was present for the birth of the LSA farm. Dan typically manages a single-year rotation each of corn and small grains, followed by a 3- to 5- year sequence of cool and warm-season grasses. Dan also operates an Agroforestry Facility, with 108 acres of pine trees interspersed with strips of sorghum-sudan and teff, and a 26-acre Atlantic City Electric easement planted to small grain and teff – all biosolids fertilized. Within the pine grove, a Bobwhite Quail Habitat has been installed in collaboration with public and private organizations, to which biosolids will be applied in the future. Dan enjoys saltwater fishing and golfing, and he has two adult children: his son is an engineering student at Arizona State University and his daughter is a registered nurse coordinating services to the disabled.

Jeff Heimbaugh -

Jeff Heimbaugh, Biosolids / Pretreatment Program Supervisor at Carlisle Borough Sewer System Authority - [email protected]. Jeff Heimbaugh has been the Biosolids Supervisor at the Carlisle Region Water Pollution Control Facility for the Borough of Carlisle, PA since 1999. He writes: “I started at the Borough as a laboratory technician in 1991 before moving to my current position. Little did I know that my background as a dairy farmer’s son would be such a blessing in my municipal government's professional career. Over the past 21 years, I’ve worked with many farmers to help supplement their fertilizer needs with our Class B lime-stabilized biosolids. Working with a staff of three full-time biosolids operators, Carlisle Region WPCF produces and land applies approximately 7,000,000 gallons of liquid biosolids and 700 tons of dewatered biosolids a year. Our staff is responsible for hauling and applying all biosolids produced at our plant. It can be quite challenging to meet the requests for biosolids applications from ten farmers before the spring planting each year. Our biosolids program has 28 farms, with 2,730 acres approved by PA DEP for biosolids applications. It has been gratifying to see the benefits of increased crop production in fields receiving our biosolids and knowing we have helped many farmers reduce their fertilizer costs each year.” Jeff explains that he spends the little spare time he has coaching high school football, running, biking, assisting his elementary art-teaching wife, and supplying Penn State funds for his two sons’ continuing education.

Jay Snyder -

Jay Snyder, Environmental Resource Manager at Borough of Ephrata - [email protected]. Jay Snyder has a balance of commitments to environmental stewardship, community, and collaboration that make a biosolids program work. Jay studied in the late 1970s under esteemed Penn State professor Charles Cole, gaining skills in principles of stewardship with a Water Resources Engineering Technology bachelor’s degree which he applied to the new and upgraded WRRFs in Ephrata Borough. Farmers in the community surrounding the borough became familiar with biosolids through the local high school’s Young Farmers Program. As a stable of good customers was built, the Annual Thank You Dinner honored the collaboration of borough and farmers, which on occasion attracted news media. Farmers were a partner in the complete sense, participating in the application, proactively dealing with concerns such as wet soils, designing equipment improvements, spreading the good word to neighbors, spacing out applications to deal with phosphorus, and providing feedback on the benefits of organic matter and nutrients on crop yields. Ephrata is a forward-looking community and has its eyes on a thermal technology for one of its plants that will produce biochar. Jay is particularly proud of having passed on to the next generation his passion for clean water and productive soil: “As my son Justin, an organic farmer for 20 over years says ‘Dad, healthier soil means healthier plants producing healthier nutrient-dense foods.’”

Philip Grayson -

Philip Grayson Biosolids Producer

Philip Grayson, Chief Operator, Wastewater at Village of Endicott (NY) -[email protected]. Philip Grayson writes: “Seldom mentioned in a classroom about environmental science is that almost every community has a facility that every day protects public health and the environment, and is recycling water and potentially biosolids. When I began working at the Village of Endicott’s Water Pollution Control Plant as a Sanitary Laboratory Technician in 2001, I quickly saw that our facility, and all the other facilities across the world, did just that.” The Endicott facility, which serves 50,000 people, is designed for 10 MGD and has anaerobic digesters, producing 100 dry metric tons annually. It began operations in 1966, but it was not until 1985 that the Village began composting biosolids with a Taulman-Weiss in-vessel system. For the next 20 years, the Village used that system to create a Class A Biosolids Compost, and, when operational challenges arose, the Village added on the windrow method to ensure complete stabilization. The Village is now looking to replace the windrow method with a Gryphon biosolids dryer designed to achieve a Class A Biosolid Product, which would reduce costs and continue to produce a recyclable biosolids. Grayson concludes: “The Village’s commitment to biosolids recycling and all of the employees who have worked to ensure that we produce a safe and beneficial material for reuse is something that I am proud to say I have been and will continue to be a part of.”

Shawn O'Toole -

Shawn O’Toole, Land Application Supervisor, Kent County Regional Wastewater Facility - [email protected]. Shawn has been at it a long time. Thirty-seven years ago when Shawn joined the Kent County Department of Public Utilities, he took on the “land option,” and became the employee in charge of the spreading of biosolids. In a program with some 100 farmers, Shawn worked with the farmers throughout the year on corn, soybean, hay, pastures, and winter wheat, doing what he could to meter out the facilities 3,000 dry tons to satisfy his customers. Back in the day, that was liquid biosolids dredged from sludge lagoons, which involved small loads and time-consuming liquid injection. Today, the product is partially dried and lime-amended, creating a Class A EQ product of about 50 percent moisture content that can be moved in the agency’s truck and applied with its spreader. Kent County has plans for upgrading solids handling to increase dryness to 90 percent, which will eliminate the lime, and Shawn expects it to be in a granular form. But he rather doubts he will be the one working out the issues with handling and dust control. “After 33 years of working two jobs, I am ready to retire,” he says. As one of the MABA region’s longest-standing land appliers, Kent County and all of the MABA region owe Shawn a hearty “Thank you.”