By Tony O'Donohue P. Eng.,
September 13, 2004
When a massive blaze gutted a seven-storey sewage sludge pelletizing plant at the Ashbridge’s Bay Sewage Treatment Plant in Toronto’s east end on the night of August 22, 2003, it left the city with a multi-million dollar headache--including $23 million for the burned-out plant itself. The plant was built by the Canadian arm of US Filter Inc. It had many start-up problems and was undergoing tests for the past two and a half years before it burned down.
According to City officials, after the many delays--mostly equipment testing, we are told - the plant was 60 days from being handed over to city management, supposedly to launch a program of fertilizing Ontario lands with ‘pellets’ of sludge, rather than the more water-laden cake sludge from the presses of the treatment plant.
Whatever secrets or market assessments the plant computer might have contained, the ‘sludge-as-fertilizer’ plan had always been controversial. Farmers across the Province had reported anecdotally, on mysterious illnesses that may have been related to the use of contaminated sludge. The sludge was supposed to be treated to remove dangerous chemicals and toxic heavy metals.
To add some drama to the plant burning itself, it was ironic that at the very hour the flames roared through the structure, the friends and staff of the City Works Department were honouring Bob Pickett, the city engineer in charge of the pellet plant, at his retirement reception, being held at Toronto’s Boulevard Club. As Works staff rushed out of the Club, when informed about the fire, a colleague of Pickett muttered, "Bob did not deserve such a send off!" Pickett had been a respected engineer through the years. But the strains of amalgamation and the new City Works management had given him additional headaches and sludge ‘digestion’ problems, in the last few years.
When Toronto’s wastewater flows into the sewage plant for biological treatment, there are two by-products after treatment--water and solids. The solids, after aeration and settlement, are siphoned off to digester tanks, where they are held for the 15-day anaerobic treatment (without oxygen). The gases from the digester tanks provide energy for the running of the plant. After digestion the sludge goes through presses to release as much liquid as possible from the sludge. The solids content may be as low as 10-20 per cent or as high as 30 per cent. The Toronto presses, at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant (ABTP), produce a sludge averaging about 27 per cent solids--the rest is water.
Generally, a community of 1,000 would produce about 50 wet tonnes of sludge every year--depending on the efficiency of the presses. Toronto produces about 165,000 tonnes of this cake sludge per year in its treatment plants. This includes human wastes as well as effluent from many manufacturing plants whose waste products can be biologically treated. These include wasted from slaughterhouses, abattoirs, dairies, food processing, breweries, canning factories, etc.
Years ago, the Metro Toronto government developed a by-law, which required the effluents from the process in these plants to be treated either in the plant by the industry itself, or at the municipal sewage treatment plant. If treatment is provided by the municipality the cost of treatment is based on the volume of the effluent and its biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).
Up to the end of the 1970s, the sewage sludge was hauled to the nearest garbage dump and mixed with the garbage. After many attempts by the Metro Works Committee, the Ministry of the Environment finally agreed to look at alternate means of disposal. Finally, it was decided that the sludge should be incinerated. Six incinerator units were built at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant.
By the mid-1980s, local citizen activists and local politicians began to lobby for alternate ways to dispose of the sludge. Air pollution was cited as a major problem from sludge incineration--especially in the east end, near the plant and in the Port lands area.
In 1994, after many meetings between staff from the Metro Works Department, politicians and local activists, it was decided to call for proposals, which was hoped would lead to what was called ‘the beneficial use of biosolids’. This really meant that the sludge would be marketed as a fertilizer material for land application. From then on, the word ‘biosolids’ would replace the more vulgar word ‘sludge’.
Just before amalgamation--in the mid 1990s - two pilot projects, each of five years duration, were approved as suitable for non-incineration methods for the disposal of the sludge. It was hoped the biosolids would enrich Ontario farm land on which they were spread and thus permit Toronto to phase out the incinerators.
The Haul & Spread Project
Terratec Environmental Ltd. was selected for the first project. The company would haul and spread about 30,000 wet tonnes per year on farmers’ fields outside Toronto. The sludge would be taken directly from the digesters for land application. The Terratec land application contract went quite well. Many farmers were willing to accept the sludge as a good soil conditioner. As farmers had already been using barnyard manure for generations, this new type of human manure was free and would probably work well.
Agricultural officials worried about the consistency of human wastes. Humans eat a wide variety of foods, whereas the food stock for animals is very basic and totally controlled. Human sludge, on the other hand, and the wastes from processing factories contained heavy metals, which would be taken up by root crops and could then enter the food chain.
The Toronto sludge quantities were large and there had been previous concerns about the high levels of heavy metals. The Province, in discussions with Metro Works officials in the early 1970s, had suggested that incineration would be preferable to land spreading.
Ontario also turned down an attempt by Metro in 1977, to use the sludge as a fertilizer for agricultural land and in reforestation areas, because of the heavy metals.
Records for Toronto sludge showed that the heavy metal content had been above the accepted level for land application. But, in later years the heavy metal content had fallen to acceptable levels as stricter regulations were applied to the wastes from private companies using the municipal sewage treatment plant.
Metro Toronto, at the time, was hauling most of the sludge to landfills and some was being incinerated in small old polluting incinerators. Metro, after much discussion, decided to build new incinerators to handle all of the sludge it produced.
New incinerators were built at the Ashbridges Bay plant by 1982 at a cost of about $32 million. A few years later, some of the sludge from the Humber Treatment Plant was directed to the Ashbridges Bay plant via the Mid-Town Interceptor Sewer.
By the early 1990s, all of the sludge from the Humber STP was directed to the Ashbridges plant, which now processes about 88-90 per cent of all the sludge produced in the city of Toronto. That added up to about 150,000-155,000 wet tonnes, or about 55,000 bone dry tonnes annually. Highland Creek STP produces another 10,000-12,000 tonnes of cake sludge annually, which is incinerated at the plant.
The measurement ‘dry tonne’ was intended as more precise for payment purposes, as the water content of the sludge, when it left the presses, could vary between 70 and 73 per cent. This percentage was constantly monitored. A dry tonne has zero water. The sludge that leaves the plant for disposal is ‘wet’ and roughly three times the dry tonne weight.
Metro Toronto also developed a process whereby leaf mold (from the leaves gathered every fall) and sewage sludge were naturally composted. The final product was provided at a few locations, free of charge, to anyone who wanted to use it. It was a good product and suitable as a fertilizer. But it was never marketed aggressively.
Covering Mine Tailings with Sludge
Harbour Remediation & Transfer (HR&T), a company set up for soil remediation and associated with a company in the earth trucking business, was selected for the other project. That project called for the preparation of about 10,000 dry tonnes of sludge per year to be hauled to Falconbridge Mines in Sudbury and to be spread on mine tailings.
The HR&T process called for heating the sludge to about 700 Celsius and the addition of lime. The heat would destroy the pathogens in the sludge and the lime would increase the pH to 12. The high pH was needed to neutralize the acidity of the mine tailings. It would be applied or spread one metre thick. Railway cars would be used to haul the material to Sudbury, where it would be then go by truck for application on the mine tailings.
One of the requirements of Metro Toronto, in the HR&T contract, stipulated that the sludge must be processed away from the Main Treatment Plant. This later proved to be a terrible mistake. HR&T leased a city-owned plant at 97 Commissioners St--about a kilometre west of the sewage treatment plant. Darling Rendering Ltd. had previously used the buildings and property for its operations. The plant was modified for the processing of the sludge and the railway siding was upgraded to receive flatbed cars.
Metro Works claimed there was insufficient space at the treatment plant for the processing of the sludge. But the real reason was soon evident - if the HR&T plant was built on the site and operated by HR&T, there would be a conflict with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). That may lead down the road to ‘privatization’--the bogeyman of civic workers. Besides, Metro Works never thought that shipping the sludge to a building one kilometre west also meant that it was shipping a brand new smell into an area which already had enough identifiable industrial smells of its own. As well, Metro Works did not have a detailed understanding of the characteristics of the sludge odour. The thinking seemed to be that if it were acceptable at the treatment plant, it would be acceptable in the same industrial area outside the plant. The project was headed for trouble unless the exported odour could be controlled. HR&T accepted the direction of Metro Works who believed that all the necessary preparatory studies had been completed before the call for proposals.
HR&T began the start up operations in September 1996 and achieved full-scale production by November. In the meantime, HR&T, Ministry of Environment and local politicians began to receive calls about the smell. After discussions, it was decided that processing should stop until the odour problems were solved. But HR&T did not expect the political turmoil the new smell would cause. It could be controlled at the new HR&T processing plant at 97 Commissioners St, but it would cost a few million dollars--money that HR&T did not have and which Metro Toronto was reluctant to spend.
Smell is one of the five senses. But it is one of the most difficult to characterize and identify. It cannot be scientifically measured with any instruments. It depends entirely on the individual’s nose. And the nose can become accustomed to a smell, sometimes, to the extent that it is no longer a problem. But the new smell at Commissioners St. was definitely noticeable to most businesses in the area, especially when the wind carried it. It could be identified perhaps 200 to 400 metres away from the plant. If the project was to work, the smell had to be contained.
During 1997, the search for a solution to control the smell dominated activities and little sludge was processed. Many suggestions were looked at and consultants were asked for proposals for an odour control plan. But the cost was deemed to be too high by some and the uncertainty of achieving complete odour control was doubtful, particularly since the movement to shut the plant had received local and political support. HR&T stopped operations again in October 1997 to prepare and implement an odour control plan.
By then Metro had realized sufficient information was not available when bids were invited for the project. It was thought that not enough characterization of the sludge was carried out and that any contractor could have faced the same problems. It was decided that the municipality would finance the project and support the HR&T plan, which included a detailed characterization of odours and rigorous pilot testing of odour control technologies, as an integral part of any upgrades.
The key components of the financial package for HR&T were:
HR&T had developed a business plan to double the processing to produce 20,000 dry tonnes per year for the next two years to meet the five-year project target. The business plan was presented to the bank and approved. It looked like everything would work out.
But the 1997 municipal election, which introduced amalgamation, was the ‘nail in the coffin’ for the project. The defeat of Peter Tabuns--Jack Layton’s friend and running mate in the election--prompted Layton (later to become the federal New Democratic Party leader) to accuse members of the Community Biosolids Committee, in a tirade at the meeting of November 27, of being involved in the defeat of, his friend, Tabuns.
Layton, chairman of the committee, ended his explosive outburst by saying he did not wish to work with members of the committee again, and then walked out. It was a clear indication to many members of the committee that the HR&T project was in deep trouble and had now became highly political.
New directions after amalgamation
During the early months of amalgamation, in the spring of 1998, Terratec carried on with the haul and spread contract while the new management team of the Works Department pondered what to do with the HR&T contract. The odour now from the HR&T project had assumed new characteristics--it had become a political smell.
But amalgamation, with a new city council, brought new staff and new ideas. The new senior management staff at the Works Department was not so receptive. The past problems of the project did not occur on their watch. It seemed that they had no wish to inherit what they considered to be a smelly mess. And so they re-evaluated the whole sludge project with HR&T.
In January 1998, the new Works and Utilities Committee requested a report on the feasibility of accelerating the shutdown of incineration at the Main Treatment Plant. On July 10, 1998, city council established the Biosolids Multi-Stakeholder Committee (BMSC) and an Independent Review Committee (IRC) retained consultants and requested proposals to allow for the shutdown of sewage sludge incineration within a three-year period.
The city finally decided not to spend any more money on the odour control and to back out of the commitments made earlier by Metro Works to HR&T on the overall financial package for odour control.
In June 1998, City Council, on the advice of new Works Department staff, decided to unilaterally cancel the contract with HR&T and work out a termination settlement. In an effort to maximize the settlement, HR&T hired lawyer Jeff Lyons, the top lobbyist at City Hall--at considerable cost--to represent them. Lyons could not get the financial settlement that HR&T wanted and advised that a colleague at Cassels, Brock (Lawyers), be retained to carry on further negotiations. Lyons felt he had done as much as he could.
The cancelled HR&T project now became a sideshow while the city went on a spending spree to prove that the sludge could be sold and beneficially used instead of incinerated.
On July 28, 1998, council, in an ambitious mood, moved up the target date to the end of December 2000 for the end of sludge incineration at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment plant. By February 1999, the Multi-Stakeholder Committee had held 14 meetings.
On February 8, 1999, Works staff presented the details of the 1999-2003 water and wastewater capital budget and identified the costs of achieving the 100 per cent biosolids beneficial use program and required design/build program.
The 1999-2003 capital works program for the closing down of the incinerators and the beneficial use of biosolids totalled $76.6 million, net after GST rebate--$15,710,000 in 1999; $53,030,000 in 2000; and $7,855,000 in 2001.
The details of the 1999-2003 capital works budget, prepared by staff, are as follows:
By the end of 2002, the city had spent about $89 million to replace the incinerators, construct the pelletizing plant and change over to a beneficial use of biosolids program. But the biosolids program, by that time, was in tatters.
What happened?
In order to understand the slippery movements of the sludge use between 1996-2002, it is necessary to look at two distinct programs for the ‘beneficial use of biosolids’. One is the ‘haul and spread’ system and the other is the ‘pelletizing’ system.
Haul and spread
When Terratec Environmental Ltd. was awarded a contract by Metro Toronto in 1996, it was a fairly simple process, with reasonable and straightforward guidelines. All Terratec had to do was sign up willing farmers, who would allow Terratec to haul and spread the sludge on their land, under minimum guidelines. It was not such a big deal, as smaller municipalities had been doing it for decades. Quantities were not large and, farmers had always used animal manure to fertilize their fields. The Province had no objections to the smaller rural municipalities, disposing of sludge in this manner. But Toronto quantities were large and there had been concern about the heavy metals content in the past.
By the mid-1980s, Toronto ‘environmental’ activists had decided that incineration was not an appropriate way to dispose of waste. Council members were constantly lobbied to vote against incinerators. Many attempts were made to close down the existing ones.
Eventually, two non-incineration projects were developed for a five-year test period. Terratec Environmental Ltd won the ‘haul and spread’ contract and HR&T won the ‘mines tailings cover’ contract - using heat and lime stabilization.
When Terratec’s haul and spread contract began, there was little worry about the impact of the sludge on farmland. It amounted to 10,000 dry tonnes or about 30,000 of cake or wet tonnes, weighed after being through the presses.
But when controversy began with the odour problems from the HR&T project, Terratec soon became the focus of attention and portrayed as an example of how sludge should be managed. With the cancellation of the HR&T contract, Terratec was called on to help out and take more sludge.
As the HR&T project made the headlines in Toronto, rural residents and farmers began to ask questions about the sludge. Gradually, it became more difficult for Terratec to obtain approval from farmers. Municipalities outside Toronto began to ask questions also. And very soon rural folk began to get the smell of Toronto sludge. The theme was--if the sludge smelled in Toronto--it smelled in rural Ontario also.
As the Terratec five-year contract was to expire at the end of August 2001, the city asked for an extension of the contract. City Works officials claimed that due to increased staff workload, negotiations with Terratec had been delayed. They wanted the extension to develop a new four-year contract with Terratec. On July 30, 2002, Council approved the extension of the Terratec contract to October 31, 2002, to allow time for staff to finalize negotiations with Terratec for a new four-year deal to apply 25,000 dry tonnes to farm land annually. That had originally been directed by Council, in March 1998--almost four years earlier.
City Works officials claimed that the contract should not be tendered, as Terratec was the only contractor with experience who could successfully do the work. Council decided to accept the new Terratec contract for four years.
Even as Terratec was being lauded as the only contractor capable of handling the Toronto biosolids for land application, the Ministry of the Environment, on September 16, 2002, laid charges against Terratec, accusing it of violating its certificate of approval for dumping sludge on a field in Cambridge between November 28 and December 4, 2001. The ministry said the sludge could flow down the field and into an adjacent stream.
The new contract with Terratec stipulated that if the sludge was applied to the land, the price was $121.67 per dry tonne and if it was hauled to the Michigan landfill site it was $112.29 per dry tonne, plus an additional $20 per dry tonne for landfill tipping fees. The contract was really an open ended contract to haul the sludge to Michigan.
With all the new regulations, following the passing of the Nutrient Act in May 2002, it was bound to be expensive and difficult to land apply Toronto’s sludge. It was also very difficult to obtain local permission for a sludge storage facility in the municipalities around Toronto. It seemed inevitable that most of the sludge would be trucked to Michigan with the rest of Toronto’s garbage, at least for the foreseeable future.
The Ministry of Environment was bound to be vigilant to ensure that all the new requirements were followed. The fee for a certificate of approval doubled and site permits became more difficult to obtain. The permit could take up to 12 months. Rural municipalities also were developing by-laws to obstruct and slow down the land application of sludge. Field storage or stockpiling was prohibited. A conveyor belt had to be used from the storage facility to the application vehicle. And the reporting, managing and inspection requirements became much more stringent.
From 1996-2000, Toronto sludge was stored during periods when land application was not possible, such as wet weather and the wintertime. The sludge was held in Halton Region at a storage facility owned by the Region, but operated by Terratec. As a result of the odour concerns, Halton Region terminated Terratec’s contract and prohibited storage of Toronto’s sludge, as of the end of 2000.
There is no doubt that the land application of sludge, farmyard manure or liquid manure has come under a great deal of public scrutiny since the Walkerton water supply tragedy in May 2000. The Justice O’Connor Walkerton Inquiry ensured that more stringent regulations were introduced. That meant that the land application of sludge, whether of human or animal origin, would be less acceptable in the rural municipalities of Ontario.
Pelletizing
Pelletizing means the packaging or bagging and marketing of sludge in pellet size for land application. The idea was to develop a market to sell Toronto sludge as a fertilizer and soil conditioner, which Milwaukee has successfully done for the last 50-60 years. The pelletizing proposal was seen by many as the ideal way of removing a smelly waste from the neighbourhood, while at the same time ‘helping’ farmers in rural Ontario.
US Filter Canada Inc., having been selected to design and construct the pelletizing plant, expected to operate the plant and market the biosolids. The city and US Filter entered into negotiations for a 15-year contract to market, transport, distribute and sell the pellets. City Council approved the deal in March 1999.
The construction of the pelletizing plant was completed in the spring of 2001 and commissioning and testing began on May 18, 2001 and continued to June 17, 2001. It seemed that the testing of the facility went without any hitches and US Filter sold the small quantities of pellets produced to farmers.
But there was one small storage problem. During the test period, pellets were ‘inappropriately stored’ as they were exposed to the elements at a farm, prior to land application. The pellets got wet and began to decompose and smolder. The fire department was called to deal with the problem. No property or building damage resulted.
City Works officials worked hard to develop an agreement with US Filter in March, 2001. They were prepared to proceed to council when US Filter notified staff, prior to the April 24 council meeting, that it could not sign the agreement as there were now several concerns. The company was extremely concerned by the actions of City Council, since US Filter had little control over the management and operation of the plant.
But there were other menacing storm clouds on the horizon for the City Works Department, as marketing negotiations got bogged down with US Filter. Marketing a product, under deteriorating conditions, did not make much sense to US Filter. The old days of spreading sludge on farmers’ fields in Ontario were over.
It did not help that City Council had finally decided not to award the operations contract for the pelletizing plant to US Filter. In other words, city workers would operate it--not US Filter. This limited the company’s role, and it was not prepared to absorb any more marketing risks.
The most devastating blow to the marketing of the pellets came when the city itself decided that US Filter could not sell the pellets for home use for three to five years. Councillor Jack Layton spelled out his health concerns in a letter to council. That sent a clear message not only to US Filter, but to those outside Toronto, that the sludge was good enough for them, but not for Toronto homeowners.
Anti-sludge activists, hearing about the sludge plans of Toronto, decided to oppose using Ontario farmland as a dumping ground for Toronto’s sludge.
Ontario had introduced the Ontario Nutrient Act in June 2002 with regulations to be in place by April or summer 2003. This would tighten the regulations and make it more difficult to market the sludge pellets as suitable manure for farmers’ fields.
Works Department staff worked on the US Filter pellet marketing agreement for the next year. The staff reported to the Works Committee on March 26, 2002, that they had completed negotiations and would be recommending entering into an agreement with US Filter. It seemed the city had softened its position. But, as the summer wore on, it seemed that opposition to Toronto sludge was increasing in rural Ontario. Many municipalities were developing by-laws to discourage Toronto sludge being dumped in their areas.
By the end of 2002, the agreement with US Filter was still elusive. It had not been presented to the Works Committee. The Biosolids Advisory Committee (BAG) and some city politicians fought hard to impose strict controls on the marketing of the pelletized product. These actions prompted US Filter to rethink its proposal--and US Filter finally backed away from the marketing.
After attempts to address the Works Committee on the sludge problems in the fall of 2002, I finally had an opportunity on April 30, 2003. Carlos Silva, a local business man, came with me and presented a few blocks or bricks which had been made of 48 per cent sludge and 52 per cent a type of ‘cement mix’. It was an example of what could be part of a solution for sludge. The proposal was referred to the staff of the Works Department for examination with a direction to report back to the committee within six months. That report never came.
I made a presentation to the committee on what I thought had happened to the sludge to cause problems. I mentioned that the whole subject of the sludge should be referred to an inquiry to get all the facts of the mess out into the open. The commissioner was angry at my suggestion. The project had been mired in an obfuscation process for the past four years. It was painful and difficult to get information from the Works Department.
Finally, when I had made my presentation to the Works Committee on April 30, 2003, I was informed that the Works Department had just tabled two reports as late additions before the committee dealing with the sludge. The first report dealt with a new proposed contract with US Filter for the palletizing; and the other dealt with a proposed contract with Terratec for haul and spread.
The Works Commissioner sought authority "to enter into an agreement with USF Canada Inc on a contract for a five year term to transport, store and market up to 32,500 dry tonnes of biosolid pellets from Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant at an initial cost of $13.35, inclusive of GST/PST, per dry tonne, on terms and conditions previously reported."
The Works Commissioner also sought permission to "enter into an agreement, commencing March 15, 2003, with Terratec Environmental Ltd., a subsidiary of American Water Services Canada Corp., to land apply biosolids from the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant (ABTB) at a cost of $121.36, inclusive of PST/GST, for each dry tonne of biosolids land applied, and during periods when land application is not possible to transport the biosolids to landfill, at a cost of $117.37, inclusive of PST/GST, per dry tonne, based on transportation to the Republic landfill in Michigan, for up to 50,000 dry tones annually for a period of four years on such terms and conditions as previously reported."
I found the report to be very revealing--because of its confusing content. It was what is generally called a ‘paint-over-the-cracks’ report. But it sounded great to the members of the Works Committee, who were looking for some good news from their costly experts. But on examination, it was a masterpiece of obfuscation.
US Filter Canada had been commissioned to build the pellitizing plant with an annual capacity of 25,000 dry tonnes on average and the ability to handle peak volumes of up to 32,500 dry tonnes per year.
The original report from the commissioner, to the Works Committee on February 8, 1999, was requesting permission to commence negotiations with US Filter "for the transportation, marketing and distribution of up to a maximum of 28,000 dry tonnes per year of biosolid pellets with an expected minimum of 25,000 dry tonnes per year of biosolids at a cost of $13.35 per dry tonne, such agreement to be for a period of 15 years."
Note that the new contract, after messing around for four years, is 32,500 dry tonnes for five years--not 32,500 tonnes per year. That’s 20 per cent use of the $23 million sludge pelletizing plant if spread out over five years. There is no minimum amount set for processing. The designation of up to 32,500 tonnes means that is a ceiling but there is no floor. Technically, according to the proposed contract, USF Canada did not have to pellitize any sludge as there is no minimum amount to be processed.
In the proposed contract, the city would continue to own the sludge until it was sold or hauled away. The $100,000 liability was also loose and gave an ‘out’ to US Filter to pack it in anytime it reached expenditures of $100,000.
According to city officials, the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant produces an estimated 53,000 dry tones of solids per year. The US Filter 32,500 dry tonnes over five years is 6,500 tonnes per year, or 12.5 per cent of the sludge produced.
What would happen to the other 87.5 percent of the sludge. Would it be spread in rural Ontario, or would it be hauled to the landfill site in Michigan? Now, enter Terratec!
Hauling to Michigan
The four year new contract with Terratec Environmental Ltd. called for the haul and spread of up to 50,000 dry tonnes of biosolids annually to Ontario farmers’ fields. If that did not work, it would all go to Michigan--that is almost all the sludge produced at the Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant.
If Toronto continued hauling its sludge to Michigan with all the other garbage produced in Toronto--at least until Michigan decided it could not handle any more--it would cost many more millions in the annual operating budget.
And what would become of the pelletizing plant at the Main Treatment Plant? That problem was conveniently solved when the new pellet plant burned down on that warm evening of August 23, 2003--opening up the road to Michigan!
What had started out as a simple project to replace incineration, mushroomed into a monumental fiasco of obfuscation, incompetence and bungling.
The fire at the pellet plan in August 2003 wrote a kind of ironic finale to the whole mess--except it wasn’t over. Since the introduction of amalgamation and particularly for March 1999 to May 2003--the sludge mess was an expensive, poorly managed foul-up, which cost Toronto taxpayers dearly. The staff and management of the MTP, on a day-to-day basis, did their best to work under conflicting pressures. The failure of the sludge program was the responsibility of the top manangement of the city's Works Department, who presided over the blowing away of the of $95 million, and the responsibility must be shared by activists and number of east-end politicians.
The pelletizing plant was built without a marketing plan and with little positive direction from management.
In trying to follow what happened over the past four years, the paper trail to council was cluttered with bits of information which did not address the overall, real, ongoing problems of sludge management. The two contracts--one to Terratec for haul and spread and the other to US Filter for pelletizing--were mere window-dressing to hide the shipment of sludge to Michigan.
The Terratec ‘haul to Michigan’ contract guarantees the company a profit and a final resting place for Toronto sludge--at least for now. But the US Filter contract was a born loser for the city and for US Filtre as well. US Filter did not have to pelletize a minimum amount. If a market could not be developed for the pellets, the sludge plant would lie idle, as Terratec hauled away 50,000 dry tonnes every year for at least four years.
The Walkerton tragedy changed everything. Works administration staff should have recognized that and sought guidance from Council. They could not hide behind BAG, BMSG, the consultants and a few influential local activists.
After five attempts, since August 2003, to get information on what happened with the sludge at the Ashbridges Bay sewage plant during the first two terms after amalgamation--from 1998 to 2003, and the capital costs for these years, City Council finally, at its July 20, 2004 meeting, directed the Works Commissioner to provide that information.
I received the information on the sludge disposal and the capital costs for the six years from the Director, Wastewater Treatment, Works Department, in a letter dated July 27, 2004. The information, which should be public and available to any taxpayer, shows that Toronto sludge is now hauled to Michigan, with Toronto garbage. It is part of the ‘red ribbon of shame’ which snakes its way daily to the US border.
.
And the new price tag, according to Works staff for the sludge to fertilizer, to the end of 2003 is $95 million! That does not include the Michigan haulage and disposal costs.
| Year | Mine Cover | Pellets US Filter | Land Apply Terratec | Incineration At Plant | Landfill Michigan | Total Sludge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 271.4* | -- | 18,006.2 | 34,063.9 | -- | 52,143.8 |
| 1999 | -- | -- | 20741.0 | 28,593.2 | -- | 49,334.2 |
| 2000 | -- | -- | 23,541.2 | 22,959.1 | -- | 46,500.3 |
| 2001 | -- | 1,955.8 | 17,310.0 | 28,021.0 | -- | 47,286.8 |
| 2002 | -- | 4,416.2 | 5,115.2 | 18,175.0 | 18,704.8 | 46,411.2 |
| 2003 | -- | 3,263.0 | 2,287.3 | 28,593.2 | 45,547.2 | 51,097.5 |
* All the above figures are in dry tonnes.
As spring 2004 faded into summer, the garden supply outlets across Toronto offered manure products for gardens and lawns. One company, Hortibec-Modugno, of St Laurent, Quebec had cow or sheep manure in 15 kilo bags at $1.99 per bag (about $130 per tonne) at all garden outlets. According to the information on the bag, it contained a minimum of 25 percent of organic material, nitrogen (N)--0.6 percent; soluble potash (K2O)--0.4 percent: phosphoric acid (P2O5)--0.4 and a maximum of 70 percent moisture. Loblaws Inc, Montreal, offered a cow manure product, similar to the Hortibec-Modugno product, but the moisture was listed at a maximum of 60 percent, and nitrogen, soluble potash, phosphoric acid all listed at a minimum 0.5 percent each. All the products are black, odourless material with the caricature of a sheep or cow on the bag. They proved popular with local gardeners.
I found it hard to imagine gardeners rushing to buy 15 kilo bags of 100 percent human manure in pellet form. It would need a lot of promotion to compete with the cow and sheep stuff.
City Council needs an ‘arms length’ investigation - a total re-evaluation of the sludge mess and the reasons it happened. It needs an MFP type of inquiry. That sadly would probably cost $10 million, and would only prove how incompetence rules our city.
Some suggested ways to handle sludge:
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement