Oregon to treat leachate from Evergreen landfill

        Oregon City Council on Monday entered into a leachate and sludge disposal agreement between the city and Evergreen Recycling and Disposal Facility, Inc.
        Public Service Director Paul Roman called it a “barter agreement” between the city and Evergreen.
        “This consists of the city’s wastewater treatment plant treating leachate from the Evergreen landfill in exchange for Evergreen providing sludge disposal from the wastewater treatment plant, at no cost,” said Roman.
        The city’s wastewater treatment plant generates non-hazardous waste sludge that needs to be disposed of. Evergreen’s landfill generates water that passes through solid waste at the landfill called leachate. It also generates liquid extracted from its gas collection system called condensate. Both need to be disposed of.
        The estimated cost of the leachate treatment and discharge of approximately 9 million gallons per year from Evergreen, and the waste sludge disposal of approximately 6,000 tons per year from the Oregon wastewater treatment plant, are considered equal.
        According to the agreement, the company will deliver its leachate to the city’s treatment plant by Northwest Water and Sewer District sewer. The city will accept, treat and dispose, through post-treatment discharge, the leachate delivered to the treatment plant. 
       
Regulations
        The city’s acceptance and treatment of the leachate is subject to approval by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) and must be in compliance with all OEPA, city and other applicable pretreatment standards, regulations ordinances and permit requirements.
        Evergreen will accept for disposal at the landfill the dried wastewater treatment plant sludge generated by operation of the treatment plant. Disposal of the sludge at the landfill will be subject to approval by OEPA and/or any other proper regulatory agency.
        “If the volume exceeds 9 million gallons per year from the landfill, then the city would charge 2 cents per gallon,” said Roman. “If our sludge production is more than 6,000 tons per year, they would charge us $45 per ton, as well as a fee of $125 per truckload. Our normal sludge production is anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 tons. I think even their leachate may not reach 9 million tons. It’s a pretty good matchup of the two volumes to be equal to each other.”
        Councilwoman Sandy Bihn asked how many gallons the city treats annually at the wastewater treatment plant.
        Roman said he did not have the figure offhand.
        “Our average daily flow is around 5 million gallons per day,” he said. “We have no capacity issues. If we have a heck of a wet weather event, and we want to hold back, we can have them do that.  That’s part of our agreement.”
        “How is it going to come here, what volume, what frequency?” asked Bihn.
       
Middleman
        Roman said the Northwestern Water and Sewer District is involved because it is responsible for the sewers in Northwood.
        “So there is a middleman agreement that has to be done between the landfill and the Northwestern Water and Sewer District. But it seems to be wet weather oriented for when they would discharge. They do have a holding pond and could hold the flows back before they send it. It’s kind of sporadic. It’s not going to be a constant stream. We have their data. It’s definitely close to 700,000 gallons per month,” said Roman.
        Bihn asked if there would be any change in the discharge going into the Bay once everything is treated.
        “No,” said Roman.
        “How often do they send us testing of their leachate?” asked Bihn, who is executive director of the Lake Erie Waterkeeper program and a long time environmentalist.  
        “It will be monthly. We’ll do random inspections, just as we do at all our facilities for pretreatment. All big dischargers are tested. We will get monthly data and we can do random tests at any time,” said Roman.
        He also said the disposal involved the solid waste portion of the landfill, not the hazardous waste section.
        “Does this agreement obligate us to do anything with the Envirosafe facility with their hazardous waste?” asked Bihn.
        “No. And I clearly don’t want to set a precedent, either. This is completely different from Envirosafe’s leachate,” said Roman.