Columbus aims to turn human waste into fertilizer

WASHINGTON - The way officials in one Georgia city see it, Americans are flushing away billions of dollars each year. Columbus is getting national attention - and federal money - for an innovative program that aims to transform human waste into fertilizer for farms.

Not surprisingly, the concept has been met with some public resistance. But Columbus Water Works President Billy Turner believes that will change as more people learn that the specially treated sewage is actually safer to use than animal manure - not to mention its cost savings to taxpayers.

Columbus alone could save more than $1 million each year otherwise spent hauling the sludge to landfills. If all the 200-plus wastewater facilities in medium and large-sized U.S. cities followed suit, Turner says the national savings could top $2 billion annually.

''Nothing about sewage is very sexy, so it's always a difficult situation,'' Turner said. ''What we're working on as an industry is to have this material become more acceptable.''

That remains the last major stumbling block now that researchers at the University of North Carolina have tested the process Columbus wants to use and given it their approval for public safety.

The science is relatively simple. For years, many cities have heated the biosolids separated from wastewater, then shipped some of it to farms for soil enhancement. But federal regulations prohibit the sludge from being used anywhere near food crops, greatly limiting where it can be stored. Many major cities, such as Los Angeles, send it to landfills more than 100 miles away at a huge cost.

The solution: heat the sewage at even higher temperatures, then send it through a specialized plug to ensure none slips by without proper treatment. Give it away to area farmers as a super fertilizer, free of pathogens found in some animal manure and far safer than less-treated human waste.

Georgia farmers would use the sludge for their crops in a heartbeat, said George Dudley, president of the Muscogee County Farm Bureau. The few people who have complained don't understand the health benefits of the sludge and that it would be almost odorless, Dudley said.

''I don't think there's anything bad about it,'' Dudley said. ''You've got a lot of people screaming and hollering, but they've been putting up with chicken and cattle sludge for years. You've got a lot of kooks who jump on anything and raise Cain.''

If the sludge goes through the extra heating process, the Environmental Protection Agency would label it as a Class A biosolid, which broadens its usage and dwindles storage costs for cities struggling to pay their wastewater bills.

''Done right, it's a win-win situation,'' said Michael Aitken, professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina. ''You've got to get rid of it somewhere, and the alternatives range from incineration to land filling. The land application process is referred to as a beneficial reuse, which means the farmer gets something out of it.''

For Columbus, the one-time equipment cost is around $12 million, half of which the federal government will likely pay. A massive congressional spending bill expected to be approved early this year includes another $2.25 million for the project, bringing the total federal allocation so far to $4.75 million.

Rep. Mac Collins, a Republican who represents Columbus in western Georgia, had problems with many of the pork-barrel projects tucked inside the bill and voted against it. However, he says the money for the Columbus Water Works project is justified because of its potential national benefits.

''It becomes a product you can market as soil enhancement,'' Collins said. ''This is a demonstration project to prove to other cities that it will work.''

Columbus has already built one of the necessary plug flow units and plans to build three more before summer of 2005, when the process is expected to be fully implemented. It could take several years before the city sees any return on its investment, but Turner expects that when it does, Columbus will be the envy of cities nationwide.

''There's literally millions of tons of this material produced at every treatment plant,'' Turner said. ''We're just looking for new technology to try to solve a difficult problem.''

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