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From the Editor

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Thanks, 
Joe Taylor

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Chick-Fertilizer

SEAFORD, Del., July 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The first rail shipment of an organic, commercial fertilizer manufactured from used poultry litter rolled out of Sussex County, Del., today, carrying excess nutrients produced by the region's broiler industry to nutrient-deficient grain farms in the Midwest. The train was christened by Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner.

"This is a great day for Delaware agriculture," said Gov. Minner. "It represents not only a part of the solution to our nutrient management situation, but also the ability of agriculture, business and government to work together to meet a challenge. I'm very proud of what we've been able to do here."

U.S. Senator Tom Carper (D-De), also a speaker at the event and Governor of Delaware when the project began, agreed. "From the very beginning, when this venture was brought to my attention, Delaware played an important role by recognizing and supporting this process as a solution. I'm very proud of our partnership and look forward to the plant's success."

The fertilizer, MicroStart60(TM), was produced at the recently opened Perdue AgriRecycle, LLC, Micronutrient Plant in Seaford, Del. The 65,000-square-foot, totally enclosed plant is capable of converting poultry litter into 80,000 finished tons of fertilizer pellets through an environmentally friendly process that recaptures the nitrogen and phosphorous while preserving the organic matter.

"This is an environmentally sound solution for sustainable agriculture," said Mike Ferguson, General Manager, Perdue AgriRecycle. "We are recycling the nutrients, organic matter and humus." Because Delmarva's poultry industry requires more grain than the region can produce, poultry companies bring in grain from the Midwest to feed their chickens. When the chickens consume that grain, they also consume nutrients -- including nitrogen and phosphorous -- that end up in the litter. Runoff from excess nutrients has been linked to water pollution. The Perdue AgriRecycle(TM) process recaptures the nutrients, returning nitrogen and phosphorous to nutrient-deficient regions where they are needed to support crop production.

Perdue AgriRecycle is a joint venture between Perdue Farms, one of the country's largest poultry companies, and AgriRecycle, the Missouri-based company that developed the litter-pelletizing technology.

"We partnered with AgriRecycle to build this plant because we wanted to keep agriculture viable on Delmarva," said Jim Perdue, Chairman of Perdue Farms. "The farm families who raise chickens for the poultry industry needed an alternative to traditional land application for their surplus poultry litter, and AgriRecycle's process offered the most environmentally sound solution. It is the only alternative that recycles both the valuable nutrients and organic material without creating any waste byproducts."

Perdue AgriRecycle has contracted with local farm families, regardless of their poultry company affiliation, to clean out their poultry houses and transport the litter to the Micronutrient Plant at no cost to the farmer.

The process begins at the farm, where surplus litter is loaded into specially designed, sealed trucks for transport to the micronutrient plant. The trucks are unloaded in the plant, where a negative air system prevents dust and odor from escaping to the environment. Special filters and scrubbers ensure that the air leaving the plant is cleaner than the outside air.

Raw material is heated and pasteurized, removing moisture and destroying any bacteria. The dried material is then converted into three-eighths-inch pellets, which are loaded into trucks or rail cars for bulk shipment to nutrient deficient regions.

The plant emits virtually no odor due to a unique system of 'scrubbing' the air free of odor-producing material. And because the moisture removed in the drying process is re-used in the pelletizing stage, the plant has no wastewater discharge.

Perdue Farms invested $12 million to build the facility, which includes $3.4 million in odor-control technology. In the last two years, Perdue Farms has invested an additional $6 million -- including upgraded wastewater treatment at its processing plants, research and producer education -- to protect the Chesapeake and Delmarva coastal bays and their tributaries. Perdue Farms was also one of four poultry companies operating in Delaware to sign an agreement with Delaware officials outlining the companies' voluntary commitment to help independent poultry producers dispose of surplus chicken litter.

Perdue AgriRecycle is a joint venture between Perdue Farms Inc., one of the country's largest poultry companies, and AgriRecycle, the company that developed the litter-pelletizing technology.

CONTACT:
Tita Cherrier
410-860-4407

Spiral-Wound Nanofiltration

The Leopold-Tulloch Consortium, a partnership formed by PCI-Water and Tulloch Civil Engineering, has secured a third contract worth £889,000 to supply a membrane water treatment plant to the North of Scotland Water Authority (NoSWA) at a remote site near Mallaig in the Scottish Highlands.

The fully automatic plant, utilizing PCI-Water's 'Fyne' technology, will remove color from organic-laden upland surface water and so prevent the formation of THM's (trihalomethanes) and other disinfection by-products during treatment. The system features spiral-wound nanofiltration membranes assembled as a tapered array to minimize energy consumption.

Raw water from Loch Eireagoraidh will be fed into the membrane system by a combination of gravity and pumping, after which the treated water will be pumped into an 1,800 m3 reservoir via pH correction and chlorination equipment.

Up to 1,500 m3/day of treated water will be delivered to an approximate population of 6,800 people living in the villages of Mallaig, Morar, Arisaig and other outlying hamlets, whose drinking water is simply chlorinated at present. The new PCI-Water membrane system, which is due to be commissioned towards the end of 2001, further underlines NoSWA's commitment to working with the Leopold-Tulloch Consortium.

For more information contact:
Ms. Gale Rudd
PCI-Water
Tel: 01792 310454
Fax: 01792 310331
Email:  gale.rudd@pcimem.com

The Reading Room

"A comprehensive design guide and reference for all service and utility piping systems found in laboratory, R&D, chemical, commercial, industrial, pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and healthcare facilities." Facility Piping Systems Handbook By Michael Frankel Hard Cover, January 1996

"A comprehensive guide to the design, performance, selection, operation, application and strengths and weaknesses of the most common valves in use, including manual, check, relief, control, and smart." Valve Handbook by Phillip Skousen Hard Cover, 864 pages, January 1998

"Marks is the 'Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' for ME's." Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers (10th Edition) by E. Avallone and T. Baumeister (editors) Hard Cover, 10th Edition, July 1996

For pre-selected books for the materials handling pro, visit the Reading Room at:
http://www.waterandwastewater.com/www_services/readingroom.htm

Ask Tom! Column

"Practical Aspects of an Effluent Recycle System"
Guest article by Shrikant Deshpande, Thermax

You can read Mr. Deshpande's article at:
http://www.waterandwastewater.com/www_services/asktom.htm

Past Ask Tom! Archived Articles
Web Address for Ask Tom! Archive is:
http://www.waterandwastewater.com/www_services/ask_tom_archive/toc.htm

WE NEED YOUR GUEST ARTICLES
Do you have an area of expertise in water treatment, have you solved a difficult wastewater problem? You too, can be an Ask Tom! guest author!  Share your knowledge with others and promote yourself (the old publish or perish is true!) by contributing an article to the Ask Tom! Column.

For more information, please contact Tom Keenan at:
info@nesa.ie

No Wear in Abrasive Applications

Pumping lime slurry is no picnic. "Quick Lime" powder is added to water at thousands of treatment plants for stabilization and water softening. The reaction of the quick lime in water causes a "plating out" and all surfaces that come in contact with the slurry are coated and caked with lime; this includes the pumps, too.

The South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Board of Delray Beach used centrifugal trash pumps for the application. The plating out created several problems. As the lime builds up on the impeller, balance is lost and the impeller and shaft wobble. The imbalance destroys the seal and creates a condition that often destroys the motor as well.

Abrasive solids complicated things even further. Grit and pebbles quickly wore down the centrifugal trash pumps, even with their wider clearances. In the end, the pumps were just too costly and labor intensive to keep running so the city switched to a diaphragm pump.

Diaphragm pumps have unique check valve/sealing arrangements. As the lime plates out, it coats the check valves and they can't close completely. These check valves must seal completely or the slurry is pushed backward into the inlet or suction side. This is called "blow by" and it causes excessive pump wear. In addition, the diaphragms were ruptured by grit and pebbles that accumulated in the diaphragm-pumping zone. Caked with lime and battered with grit and rock, the pumps just didn't hold up well. They required maintenance just about every other day to keep them running. Consequently, these two very different pumps produced the very same result - exorbitant maintenance requirements and high operating costs.

Bob Hagle, the Executive Director of South Central Regional Wastewater Treatment Board of Delray Beach, Florida, contacted Gerber Pumps. They recommended a Disc pump. There are broadly, two categories of pumps, centrifugal and positive displacement. Discflo pumps fit neither category. Using boundary layer/viscous drag forces creating by rotating parallel discs, called the Discpac, fluid is "pulled" into the pump without impingement. Non-impingement is what makes it different from other pumps. This difference has significant advantages.

The Discflo pump suffers little or no wear, even under the harshest abrasive conditions and has almost no impact on shear-sensitive fluids and delicate products. Lime slurry applications are simple for Discflo pumps because of this unique operating system and a simple physical design. The plating out reaction in the slurry causes lime buildup on the surfaces of the Discflo Pump as it does in other pumps. For the Discflo pump, however, this is not an issue. Lime buildup forms in a smooth even layer on the surface of the Discpac and in effect, becomes part of the Boundary-Layer/Viscous-Drag operation. Buildup can reduce the overall capacity of the pump at a given RPM by a small amount, but it has no affect on its performance. The Discpac and rotating element remain balanced, seals are protected, and the pump maintains a smooth, laminar flow. Abrasive solids in the slurry present little threat to the Discpac because a boundary layer of fluid coats and protects it. In fact, in this application, abrasives solids can help by preventing excess lime build up on the disc surfaces. The pressure gradients and hydraulic shearing action between the Discs create an equilibrium of the plated lime so there is no excess accumulation on the Discs and the boundary layer maintains an effective operating thickness.

Stephen Gerber says they have never experienced the problem of excessive plating out buildup on the Discpac. But, he says, "if in fact the pump capacity ever suffered because of extreme lime buildup, the solution would be quick and easy." The back pullout design makes removing the Discpac for cleaning simple. Unlike centrifugal pumps, there are no exact tolerances to worry about. Any buildup could be easily "sliced" away from the Discpac's smooth surfaces returning them to their original condition. The Discpac is serviced easily without "miking" or feeler gauges.

The lime slurry pump at Delray has been in operation since April 2000 and has required no maintenance. The complete elimination of maintenance has saved the plant thousands of dollars in just this first year of operation. This is typical Discflo pump performance in lime slurry and sludge applications. It is in stark contrast to the near-constant maintenance that is required to run conventional-type pumps under the same conditions.

Discflo's unique fluid handling capabilities have brought unheard economy to hard-to-pump lime slurry and sludge operations. Engineers and treatment plant operators are taking notice. Bert Gerber reports that there has been much interest and it has resulted in several current Lime Slurry projects in Florida alone.

Discflo pumps come in over twenty models and can be configured for a wide variety of operating ranges and fluid conditions.

For more information contact:
Discflo Corporation
1817 John Towers Ave.
El Cajon, CA 92020
Telephone:  619-596-3181
Web site:  http://www.discflo.com/

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Chewing Up Heavy Solids

This Taskmaster® TM8552T Triplex features a massive 36" (914mm) wide by 52" (1278 mm) tall fully active sewage grinding area. This unit features an amazing grinding capability with its imposing wall of size reduction power. The TM8552 installs into large, high flow straight through raw sewage channels yet has requires only 12 (304mm) inches in depth.

This Taskmaster Triplex is designed to handle over 12 mgd (44 mld) of raw sewage. It features a high flow, low headloss design, six counter-rotating shafts and three -3hp motors and drives. Each unit can operate independently so even if one is busy chewing a heavy solid, the two other grinder sets may operate uninterrupted. This assures a high level of operational efficiency. A supplied automatic unit control system monitors and coordinates all grinder operations.

The TASKMASTER employs exclusive “cutter cartridge technology”. With this design 6 individual cutters and six spacers are merged into one piece cartridge elements resulting in a major reduction of individual cutter parts and greatly increased unit strength. This design improves unit longevity and eliminates the need for cutter stack re-tightening - a common requirement of designs employing individual cutter and spacer disks. All shafts are sealed with heavy duty FMI mechanical seals with tungsten carbide seal faces. Each seal is housed in a one piece cartridge for simplified maintenance. The unit is supplied with easy to install channel frame for quick grinder removal without the need for fasteners.

For more information contact:
Franklin Miller Inc.
60 Okner Parkway
Livingston, NJ 07039
Telephone:  973-535-9200
Fax:  973-535-6269
Web site:   http://www.franklinmiller.com/
Email:  info@franklinmiller.com

Help Forum

People post their requests for help and offer their suggestions to others in our open forum.

Ms. Goluba wants scrub brooms:

I am looking for metal bristle brooms to be used to scrub down weir walls. Help? I need web sites as I am stationed overseas and internet access is much easier than attempting to call due to time zones. Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Jackqulyn Goluba
Jackqulyn.Goluba@ramstein.af.mil

Mr. Chiew is looking for a hardness switch:

Has anyone heard of this hardness switch called "Muira"? Apparently it's quite an economical alternative to a hardness analyzer like those produced by Hach. Or if anyone knows of any economical hardness switch, I'd appreciate if you could drop me a mail at mailto:hchiew@pacific.net.sg

Thanks!
Han

These and other messages can be found in the Help Forum.
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Photos Wanted

This week's photo is of a wastewater treatment plant.  Columbian TecTank offers tanks in a wide range of configurations. These include flat bottoms, cone bottoms and tanks on structures, each with various piping options. Our liquid storage tanks are individually engineered for your specific application.

Photo courtesy of Mr. Tom Renich, Columbian-TecTank

We would love to have your photo of a water treatment process, new plant or equipment "action shot" for our home page.  If you have a favorite photograph of water treatment at its best, please e-mail us a jpeg or gif of the photo with a description of what is in the photo for our home page.

Full credit and the description of the photo will be given.  Photographs are be changed every two weeks to give everyone a chance to be included.

Send your photograph and description to,
mailto:news@waterandwastewater.com

Jobs

P.E. Wastewater

P.E. Wastewater Department: Engineering/Engineering Management
Location: Pasadena, California Metropolitan Area: Los Angeles, CA
Job Level: Senior Employment
Status: Full-Time (Regular) Rate: 60-90K

Responsibilities: Responsible for lead design and coordination of design of water and wastewater facilities including treatment plants, reservoirs, pump stations and pipelines.

Experience: Minimum five years of design experience. Skills Requirements: Experienced water/wastewater design engineer with ability to be a lead designer on major projects. Registered Engineer in State of California required or ability to become registered within 1 year.

Education Requirements: BS in Civil Engineering.

Relocation Assistance: Negotiable

The Job Fair is a free service of Water and Wastewater.com.  You can post job opening for managers, engineers, sales, reps or other talented people you need. ...Or one can post their resume for companies who are looking to add talented people to their staff.

Do you have a position you need to fill, visit the Job Fair:
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Joe Taylor, Editor

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© 1999-2001 Water and Wastewater.com
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Joseph Taylor, Editor
Water and Wastewater Newsletter
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