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The Altoona Water Authority at a recent meeting authorized the transfer of 15 tons of the Class A soil amendment that it produces with its anaerobic digester and dryer to an employee who is a farmer, so the employee can conduct a study of the product's effectiveness.
The employee plans to apply the NutrAWAste he received as a fertilizer on cropland, then cover it with hay, while also covering similar ground with hay, but minus the NutrAWAste, as a control, in hopes the testing will show the soil amendment works, according to Sewer Operations Director Brad Kelly.
The authority hopes that pictures of the fertilized plant growth, alongside pictures of the unfertilized plant growth, will help the authority market the product.
"A picture speaks a thousand words," Kelly said.
The authority had spread 470 tons of NutrAWAste on property it owns on former strip-mined land above the Horseshoe Curve, where it helped make grass and flowers bloom, but the soil there is degraded, and the test on farmland might be more convincing for farmers, according to Kelly.
The authority is producing about 650 tons of NutrAWaste per year.
It has sold 85 tons to the public so far, Kelly said.
The authority produces NutrAWAste by drying Class B biosolids produced at its two sewer treatment plants in a gas-fired dryer at its Westerly Sewer Treatment Plant.
While Class B or "cake" biosolids can be applied to farm fields under strict environmental agency supervision, Class A biosolids like NutrAWAste can be used freely in publicly accessible areas like home gardens and parks.
The authority obtained an exceptional quality biosolids permit for NutrAWAste from the state Department of Environmental Protection, after showing that the product was at least 90% solid and meets pathogen and vector attraction standards and limits on pollutants like zinc, magnesium and aluminum.
The process of creating NutrAWAste includes initial processing of solids that enter the Westerly plant; thickening with a gravity belt thickener to 3% to 4% solidity; mixing with grease, which takes the material to 4% to 6% solidity; placement in the digesters; then, after removal from the digesters, running the material through a centrifuge, which brings the material to 22% solidity.
That is the Class B cake.
The digesters produce biogas that fires the boilers that keep the digesters heated.
For now, the dryer runs on purchased natural gas, according to authority spokesman Daniel Ramsey.
Ideally, the digesters will eventually produce enough biogas to fire the dryers too.
The authority sells the NutrAWAste for $20 a ton.