Waste Water residuals and land application Robert Harris Smithfield Packing Company Tar Heel, NC

Tar Heel – a study 3 very different situations 1) Davco – sanitary system Handled as a liquid sludge to a POTW (publicly owned treatment works – i.e.. A city) 2) Conventional Activated Sludge Handled as a belt pressed sludge and sent to the public landfill as a beneficial use solid 3) Anaerobic Basins Handled as a liquid sludge and spread on local farms

Davco – plant bathrooms Generates 40,000 gallons of sludge (liquid) per month on average. Subject to 503 regulations because of “human” factor 40 CFR 503–Disposal of Sewage Sludge Domestic sewage biosolids Want to avoid “503” and stay industrial user

Handled by Sewage hauler Not dewatered – no capacity for belt wash water Water cannot enter Activated Sludge system Plant Water Re-use Handled by local Domestic WWT plant (PWC – Fayetteville NC)

Conventional Activated Sludge solids 5MM gallons under aeration Cannot land apply – 2 windows for Land Application in this area and we generate year round Installed a 2 meter belt press (BMP) Average 120,000 gallons of wasted activated sludge per day Attain working average of 13% solids with peaks in the 15% area

Hauler Utilize our Licensed Land Application hauler to take to local landfill Get excellent rates based on tonnage Get excellent rates because it activates their domestic trash in a biogas to energy process that they have going Not technically recycling – but certainly the next best thing.

Opportunities for Land Application We have looked into land application on non farming sites and there is some opportunity Financially this is a bad decision Poundage would go down and lose preferential tipping fees. Costs would actually go up, even though we were hauling less loads to the landfill Landfill will NOT adjust because they desire our sludge for activation of domestic trash

Anaerobic lagoons Huge storage capacity (15MM gallons each – 2 basins) Have the ability to hold solids so that we can land apply during the farmer’s “window” Hauler is able to negotiate excellent pricing because we operate on HIS schedule.

Improvements Centrifuge Solids and grease recovery Huge money generator (1.7MM annually) Solids have decreased to the degree we will move from twice a year land app to a single event saving an additional $120-150K per year

Interesting facts Hauler is full service Provides all monitoring and testing Provides a bound state report at the end of each application year All farms are permitted to the hauler 2 – 4 Million gallons applied per event

Potential issues to consider We have no permitted fields of our own Positive – no public hearings, postings, etc with “Smithfield” on them Negative – we are limited to haulers that provide this service We are responsible for everything – you CANNOT sign away your responsibilities Spills Errors in annual report

Questions? 757-613-1339 – Direct line anytime Buddy Harris 910-862-5248 – Jeff Musselwhite 757-356-6714 – Roland (Rocky) Beem – regulatory questions