City Contracts for Composing System

The city of Goldsboro, N.C., has awarded USFilter a sole-source contract to supply a $1.3 million IPS composting system as part of the city's wastewater treatment expansion.

Typical of many growing communities, Goldsboro needed to increase its wastewater treatment capability to ensure future growth and environmental safety. The expansion of the wastewater plant resulted in a second challenge — increased wastewater residual (biosolids) management.

"We wanted a long-term economical route for biosolids management. We selected USFilter's IPS composting system because they proved themselves, both in technical support and in technology," said Richard Slozak, manager of the city of Goldsboro.

Prior to selecting the USFilter technology, the city verified the system dependability by visiting other IPS Composting facilities to inspect and evaluate equipment performance.

The fully enclosed composting system mixes, shreds and moves the organic material through in-vessel composting bays. The system also incorporates an organic media biofilter that acts as a natural odor control system. The compost product meets the U.S. EPA standards for Class A and Vector Attraction Reduction (VAR).

Compost has characteristics that help to control erosion, establish and maintain turf, and improve soil chemistry and structure. The compost product is intended for landscaping, golf courses, nurseries, and other beneficial uses.

The city of Goldsboro will use the composting system to process biosolids from its wastewater treatment operations and community yard waste for reuse. Beneficial reuse of these composted materials will help protect the local watershed and reduce the overall cost associated with disposal of biosolids.

The composting facility will process 12,500 tons of biosolids and 12,000 tons of yard waste annually.

The project team includes Arcadis, Geraghty and Miller, a consulting engineer located in Raleigh, N.C., handling the engineering and project management for both the wastewater treatment and biosolids composting projects, and Engineered Construction Company, general contractor, who began construction in the Spring of 2001.