BUCHANAN - The wastewater treatment plant in Buchanan will accept up to three times the amount of leachate that it now takes in from the Southeast Berrien County Landfill.
It's a move that will save the landfill $250,000 per year and generate about $50,000 annually for the city, Buchanan City Manager William Marx said.
Leachate is water after it drains through the landfilled trash and collects at the bottom of the dump. It contains a variety of chemicals and other matter from contact with the refuse.
"This is quite a savings for the landfill. We have the ability to take this," said Buchanan Mayor Carla Cole, who's also a member of the Southeast Berrien County Landfill Authority board.
Under an agreement drafted in 1984, Marx said the city's wastewater treatment plant has taken up to 25,000 gallons of leachate per day from the landfill.
Additional leachate from the landfill has been shipped by tanker to a treatment plant in Elkhart at a much higher cost because of transportation costs.
Marx said he recently had lunch with landfill general manager Sonny Fuller and listened to his desire to reduce the expense of shipping leachate.
Marx said he began checking with operators at the wastewater plant and learned as much as 100,000 gallons of leachate per day can easily be safely treated at the plant.
The Buchanan City Commissioners unanimously voted in favor of an agreement this week that allows the landfill to transport additional leachate to the plant through an existing pipeline.
Marx said the move has been approved by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
He said the landfill will have to perform some upgrades to its lift station to increase the flows.
Commissioner Dave Hagey applauded what he said he felt was a sample of the creative solutions ordinary citizens don't realize are occurring in local government.
"These are the kind of things percolating below the surface that people don't understand," Hagey said.
Cole said transporting leachate by tanker costs the landfill $115 per hour.
"This is where our biggest savings is going to be," the mayor said.
1 comment:
i agree with you that current waste management system needs to be evolved according to the new emerging challenges. With more and more electronic waste now in the households we definitely need a new strategy to handle such challenges.
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