What's on Your Mind?
Can a wastewater treatment plant safely apply treated effluent to land?
I made a few inquiries but was unable to find any information on this topic for Michael Cain, Watershed Assessment and Restoration manager for the Harpeth River Watershed Association in Franklin, Tenn.
Cain is researching the land application of effluent for his master's thesis. That's right, effluent, not sludge or biosolids.
It seems that Franklin is going to build a new wastewater treatment plant, and the city wants it to be a zero-discharge facility. The intentions are good: the city sits on the Harpeth River, which has an extremely low summer flow already exceeding it waste allocation from National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System sources, Cain explained.
Do you know of any reports or articles that address land application of effluent? If you do, please send them to me and I will share them with Environmental Protection and Water & Wastewater News readers as well as Mr. Cain.
On another not-too-unrelated note is an environmental networking Web site www.myenviroguide.com originating from Australia. Currently in its beta form, the Web site seeks to combine the efforts, skills, and knowledge of all of us to protect and enhance the natural environment. It is designed to connect environmental professionals from all over the world. Some of the best things about this site is it is free; members can customize their profiles (need to find some research or maybe a job?); and you can share files.
You should check it out. Then let me know what you think.
Posted by L.K. Williams, EPonline on Mar 24, 2009