TURNING WASTE INTO GOLD (OR COPPER)

BY Jeniffer Alsever
DC water needs costly infrastructure –pipes, specially– and the utility is finding creative,
entrepreneurial ways to pay for it
The water authority in Washington, DC, receives 1,500 wet tons of sewage into its wastewater-
treatment facility each day. CEO George Hawkins views it as liquid gold –an ingredient for a
moneymaking operation that could help pay for repairs to its aging infrastructure. His agency, DC
Water, cooks, sterilizes, and turns that sewage into a soil fertilizer called Bloom, which began
shipping this spring to nurseries and garden centers in the region.
Ignore the “ick” factor. DC Water is among a handful of utilities that is innovating to save or generate
money. Philadelphia’s utility is using the water that washes into the sewers during storms to keep its
parks green. And in Portland, Oregon, purified wastewater is being used to make beer. (No one says
you have to drink it).
The Washington initiative is ambitious. The process begins with the mater flushed down a toilette,
which may travel through any of DC Water’s 1,800 miles of sewer pipes to the wastewater-treatment
plant. Oils, fats, sediments, and objects are screened out, and the water is disinfected. The remaining
sludge then goes through a three-stage process that cooks it in high heat and pressure, sterilizing and
softening it. The clean sludge is then sent tom four 80-foot-tall anaerobic digesters, where giant mixers
churn the liquid for two weeks while a population of microorganisms called “methanogens” eats the
organic matter, producing methane gas for electricity that ultimately powers a third of the water plants
operations. The solid then travel to a belt-filter press that squeezes out water and delivers the crumbly
compost to bunkers that can hold 1,000 ton each.
The result can be used to fertilize gardens and trees. (Bloom fertilizer is in high demand, says Brian
Riddle, who bought 1,000 tons of it for his DC area garden centers, Homestead Gardens. He says it´s
hard to find affordable fertilizer that’s safe and natural. “Bloom,” he says, “is loaded with valuable
nutrients.”)
DC Water spent several years investigating and testing the technology, which was already in use in
Europe, before spending $470 million on the equipment two years ago. DC Water would have needed
to spend most of that money anyway to treat the bio-solids, and this was a way to do that in a
sustainable manner and generate revenue to fix aging pipes. More than half of the DC pipes are 79
years or older –some date to 1860– and the agency estimates a need for at least $1 billion in repairs in
the coming years.
Bloom´s sales are still fledgling, and Hawkins says it may take two or three years to ramp up. But the
approach was a necessity. “It’s literally like a startup,” he says. “Our business model was going to fail
without fundamental change.”
That could be the case of much of America’s broad array of infrastructure, says Greg DiLoreto, past
president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which produces a report card on the state of the
nation’s infrastructure every four years. America’s grade this year: D+. The nation’s 14,748 water-
treatment facilities are in particular disrepair, suffering from 240,000 pipe breaks a year. These
facilities will need to serve some 56 million new customers over the next two decades, says DiLoreto.
He praises DC Water’s initiative. “That kind of innovation will make the money go a lot further,” says
DiLoreto, “but we still need investment or we’re going to see more pipe breaks and more Flint,
Michigans.” DC Water’s new investments has allowed it to cut its operating budget, as well as its bio-
solid disposal and energy costs, making it the largest generator of clean energy in the Washington,
DC, area. The utility has even more plans to generate revenue, including selling “sewer-thermal
energy,” which uses heat exchangers inside the city’s underground sewage system to heat and cool
buildings –much like traditional geothermal energy drawn from the earth’s core. The sewer energy is
being tested at several of DC Water’s own buildings before being rolled out to potential customers.
Other plans are in the works too. They give new meaning to the old phrase “Waste not, want not.”
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