BacTee Systems Inc. has won a contract to supply the aeration floor system for an odor control system at one of the largest compost facilities ever constructed in the US.
Scheduled to come on-line in 2006, the Inland Empire Regional Utilities Compost Facility, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Cucamonga, CA, will use biofilters to treat all air emissions from the plant.
The aeration floor will cover approximately 3.5 acres and distribute over 800,000 cfm of air within the biofilter. This is BacTee's third major biofilter project within the Los Angeles metropolitan area in recent years. The company supplied aeration floors for odor control systems at the compost facility of the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District in Calabasas County and at a biosolids storage facility for the LA County Sanitation Districts.
Composting is becoming big business in the US. While soil microbes have been turning biodegradable wastes into productive topsoil from the beginning of life, only recently has composting become a full-fledged industry. Today thousand of tons of farm manure, yard waste, household waste and biosolids from wastewater plants are collected and processed into organic soil amendments in processing plants of ever-increasing size and sophistication.
Co-composting, the mixing of biosolids and municipal and agricultural solid waste, frees up space in landfills and keeps toxic wastes from seeping into the water table where they can contaminate ground water. Given the tougher restrictions on the use and citing of landfills along with EPA's estimate that 67% of the municipal waste produced in the U.S. can be composted, processing plants are springing up around the country.
To be housed within a 410,000-square-foot former furniture store, the new compost facility is a joint project of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA) and the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The fully enclosed processing facility will have the capacity to convert over 300 tons/day of biosolids, green material, manure, and other bulking additive material to a Class A Compost making it acceptable for use in virtually all agricultural and horticultural markets.
The IEUA is a municipal water district that distributes imported water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and provides wastewater collection and treatment services to more than 700,000 people within a 242 square mile area in the western portion of San Bernardino County. The agency provides service to the cities of Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana, Montclair, Ontario and Upland, as well as the Cucamonga Valley and Monte Vista Water Districts.
BacTee Systems is an environmental systems company providing solutions for odor control, wastewater treatment, and solid waste management. The company markets its products to major engineering and construction firms throughout North America.
