The Mess We‘re In

Aug. 1, 2007

Last week, Northern Express reported on the common practice of spreading septage — essentially human waste — onto farmland as fertilizer. It’s on the downslide, though, as subdivisions sprout where corn once grew. In our series on “The Politics of Poop,” we talk about Grand Traverse County.
The Mess We’re In
How the ‘politics of poop’ made a sticky situation in Grand Traverse County





As you sit and eat your French fries or buffalo wings at your favorite restaurant, you might think about the oil clogging your arteries.
But have you ever thought about the frying oil clogging the city sewer lines?
And what to do about it?
“It’s like slop from the bottom of a dishpan. It can’t go into the sewer line because it will plug it up like a scab,” said septic hauler Walt Steuer. “The oil is valuable – a truck comes and sucks out whatever they’ve got and goes on their way,”
The chunkier oil and food particles go into a three-part grease trap, and those traps have to get pumped every month. That’s where Steuer comes in. He explains:
“The cooking oil from the kitchen is in the first compartment. The second looks like vomit, and the third, you get the finer stuff. The bulk of the heavy stuff is in the first compartment.”
But Steuer has a problem, and that’s what to do with the grease after he pumps it out, takes it home, and grinds it up (the stench is reportedly a thousand times worse than human excrement). He’s been applying it to a rye field in Buckley, but the phosphorous levels in the soil are getting too high.
Steuer wants to take the gook to the new Grand Traverse Septage facility, but can’t because they’re having technical problems. The microbial stew that processes the waste has to reach a temperature of 120 degrees, but it’s still 11 degrees short of being ready.
“I’m sitting on the barb wire and wondering, am I going to get scratched or ain’t I?” said Steuer, who will likely have to haul the stuff downstate.
Jim Minster, a Gourdie-Fraser consultant for the septage facility, said the temperature is steadily climbing — just nine degrees to go — but he can’t commit to a date.
“I’m dealing with a biological system. I can’t predict the behavior of bugs,” he said.

A LITTLE HISTORY
Back in 1997, area haulers were running out of farm fields, so they started lobbying for a septage facility that could take their loads and turn it into water clean enough to put back into the Boardman River.
After struggling for just the right location, a $7.8 million plant was built
at the end of LaFranier Road. The plant
got scant notice from the public until part
of it collapsed in June of 2005 — a mere
30 days after it opened. The Traverse City Record-Eagle covered the story, with reports of cronyism and poor design.
The company that designed Grand Traverse County’s failed septage treatment facility acknowledged it didn’t know an industry standard “even existed” for constructing such buildings, according to a Record-
Eagle report.
“Saying ‘I told you so’ has never been so painful,” said Bob Russell, who opposed the choice of Gourdie-Fraser as the engineering firm. “It was a bad design — everything about it is wrong, and I don’t know if they can fix it.”
Russell, who sat on the county’s Board of Public Works, had proposed a different system, which he said would have been less expensive and was already proven. At the board’s request, he found an expert (a University of California-Davis professor) who gave it a stamp of approval.
“The good ole boys wouldn’t accept it, because they wanted Gourdie-Fraser to build it. They made decisions every step of the way to make sure that Gourdie-Fraser would get the contract,” he said.
A DISASTER
Russell said he was edged off the board by Joe Bartko, the former East Bay Township Supervisor who was convicted on a misdemeanor after charging thousands of dollars of meals and personal items on the township credit card. Russell then watched from the sidelines as the facility struggled with the building collapse and money troubles. Fortunately, Bay Harbor lifted the plant into solvency with its daily deliveries of 50,000 gallons of contaminated water. That will continue even if Bay Harbor gets its injection well in Alba, said Public Works Director Chris Buday.
Buday refuted Russell’s allegation that the process gave favoritism to Gourdie- Fraser. “I was there at all the public meetings, and I didn’t see that going on. Gourdie Fraser was the only one who said they could do it for the price and get it done on time,” he said.
He believes Russell’s concept of a solar aquatic system was given a fair hearing. But the current system was chosen because it’s truly state-of-the-art, one of a kind, and will ultimately produce the cleanest wastewater and sludge in the nation.
Brett Gourdie of Gourdie-Fraser agreed: “The level of treatment coming out of there will be as high as you see anywhere. The bio-solids will be perfectly acceptable to use for anything: bedding material, gardens — and that’s because all of the nutrients, E. coli and bacteria will be stripped out completely.”
But, after two years, the facility isn’t there yet. Again, it’s because the microbial stew designed to eat the pathogens and bacteria has failed to reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The sludge is now stored at the facility and may be land-applied in the future, Buday said.

THE REST OF THE STORY
After the sewage facility collapsed, $2 million in repairs were made at the contractor’s expense, as well as insurance pay-outs. The facility only stopped accepting septage for two weeks, and is now nearly up to speed. It processes the septage clean enough for discharge, but still pipes it to Traverse City’s wastewater treatment plant for more processing, before it’s discharged to the Boardman River, Buday said.
The Traverse City wastewater plant —recently revamped for $31 million — is the bright star in all this; its treated wastewater is so clean, it’s almost famous among the sewage pros.
Since it opened, the Grand Traverse septage facility has processed more than 11 million gallons of septage and holding tank waste. That’s 11 million gallons that would have otherwise been used as human waste fertilizer for corn, rye, beans, and cherries.
Although 11 million gallons sounds like a lot, it’s a far cry from the 18.2 million gallons that the septage facility had estimated.*
In part, that’s because it can’t accept grease trap waste. But it also has to do with your pocketbook.
Septic haulers Whit Blakeslee and Walt Steuer said that the board didn’t listen to them and came up with a rate structure that works against them.
The haulers have to pay 12 cents for every gallon of septage, plus fuel costs. They pass on that cost to you, the homeowner, so it now costs about double — about $350 — to get your septic or holding tank emptied if you live in Grand Traverse County. Only a fraction of the 20,000 owners of septic tanks in Grand Traverse County are getting their tanks pumped every three years like they’re supposed to.

LONGER WAITS
“The cost is causing a lot of people to wait too long before getting their tank pumped. There are people who won’t do it at all — or they wait 10 years, and have no idea the last time they had it done. It’s because all of a sudden, you’re charging more — you tell them you can’t do it for the old price — and they’re put off by it,” said Mandy Sogge, owner of Belanger’s Septic Service.
Some wait until they have a problem, and the septage brew starts bubbling up in the yard or the sewer backs up into the house. When that happens, it usually means the homeowner has wrecked his drain field, which can cost up to $5,000 to replace, Sogge said.
“This rate system is stupid because it discourages people from pumping,” Russell said. “Everything about it is wrong, and it’s because they were such stubborn and close-minded idealogues at the township level. They were so self-centered with this Republican mantra of no new taxes.”
Russell said he had suggested a different fare structure, which he thinks could still work: each resident with a septic tank pays a tax of $50 a year. The county wouldn’t charge haulers the 12-cent processing fee. Every three years, when the tank should be pumped, the resident only pays the transportation cost to the facility.
Russell’s idea was rejected early on, Buday said, because the board feared the public would fight it, perhaps triggering a referendum or citizen lawsuit. Garfield Township Supervisor Lee Wilson said the tax is not a bad idea, but it should come from a petition drive from the people and “not forced on people by the government.”
Buday said the authority for a different rate structure could come from the county board of commissioners. If all 20,000 septic tank owners paid a $50 tax per year, the bond would be paid up in eight years and the facility would be used to capacity.

*The facility also has processed 1.6 million gallons of wastewater from Cherry Blossom, a cherry processor, and 6.9 million gallons of contaminated water from Bay Harbor.


In Charlevoix: John Campbell’s Bacterial Solution
Before the controversy exploded around the Grand Traverse septage facility, Charlevoix entrepreneur John Campbell was tinkering with a blend of bacteria in November of 2004.
Campbell, in the business of landscaping and septic tank pumping for 28 years, knew the time for land application of septage was coming to an end, and joined up with a team headed by the Northwest Michigan Health Department looking for a better way.
The team went to a job site where a bacterial mix in a septic tank was producing a cleaner flow into drain field, and wondered if the same approach could work outside of the tank.
Two months later, he tried it out on a batch of septage and, voila! It broke down the solids and reduced nitrogen levels.
Based on that first test, Campbell began to design and build a septage plant. “I just knew land application couldn’t continue to exist, primarily because of the way it affects our surface water and groundwater.”
So he took a risk and built Big Fish Environmental, which opened in December, 2005. He is quick to acknowledge he relied on the help of many government pros in the fields of environment, health, and waste treatment.

IN AND OUT
So far, septic haulers aren’t dismayed by the 10-cent per gallon cost. “It’s faster than land application so they don’t get stuck land applying in the fields, they don’t have to disk it in, they don’t have to pay $100,000 for a special truck to inject it below the surface. They’re in and out of here with a 4,000 gallon load in less than 30 minutes.”
Campbell said the plant is still in a “research and development” phase, yet it has processed one million gallons of septage since it opened a year and a half ago.
What does he do with the sludge — the thick residue left after you process the septage?
“We have no sludge. We just went into our second phase and are producing a material with exceptional quality. It’s a Class A bio-solid that is viral-free and free of pathogens that we can mix with top soil. So it’s completely recycled.”
He doesn’t call it a fertilizer, but a “soil amendment.”
Is it for sale yet? “The process is still in the research and development phase, as is our Big Fish process. … We’re still finding out a lot,” he says.
Campbell has applied for a pre-patent on the bacterial process. If he could franchise this idea of his septage facility and hard-working bacteria, it would be a boon for rural haulers who need a place to take their chunky, liquid loads.
Maybe call it something like, “Septage Is Us.”
But when asked about his plans, Campbell said he’s not ready to spill any news. “Ask me after September 1st.”

Part III: The blow-out in Northport