New $5M Sludge Dryer Almost Operational

Pottstown's $5 million installation of a next generation sludge dryers is nearing its completion.

Utilities Manager Brent Wagner told the Pottstown Borough Authority Board Tuesday that the machine has been installed, but the bugs are still being worked out.

"I was down there and there were some hairy problems, but I was impressed with how quickly they were worked out, and mostly by our staff," said authority board member David Renn.

Wagner said the new dryer, whose cost is also being partially covered by Lower Pottsgrove, Upper Pottsgrove and West Pottsgrove townships, all of which send their sewage to the plant, is about five to six weeks behind schedule.

The delay, Wagner said, was due large to delays in PECO getting natural gas service to the site and into the dryer building. And the primary problem facing the plant's start up is insufficient natural gas pressure, which is preventing the heating unit in the dryer to get hot enough to dray the slewage sludge adequately, he said.

"It's all material handling," Wagner said. "It's a really good piece of equipment. It's a matter of fine-tuning the operation."

The new technology is so energy efficient, and produces a product ready for application to farm fields as fertilizer, that the savings will cover the costs in about 10 years. But first it cost more money because the technology is so new, the state Department of Environmental Protection was not quite sure how to regulate it and required additional safeguards, which drove up the cost by $1.3 million. 

However it will be worth it in the end, he said, because of the quality of the dried product which comes out at the end of the process.

"It's an improvement for farmers who can use it on their fields," said Wagner, who said it "looks like a corn flake."

There is some rush to finish because while the new dryer was built, the old one had to be removed. That means for the past few months, the sewer plant's untreated sludge has been trucked to a landfill, which is extremely expensive.

Gryphon CEO W. Tid Griffin with the end product of his dryer.

The new dryer is made by Owensboro, Ken.-based Gryphon Environmental LLC and Wagner said when problems began after installation, Gryphon President and CEO W. Tid Griffin, "was on a plane that night and he was here the next day. They have been very good about working with us."

That may be because Gryphon has a lot riding on the success of the new dryer, it is one of the first, if not the first, to be used at a municipal plant. There is one currently being used at a Tyson Chicken plant, processing chicken waste, but a successful start in Pottstown will give the company a foot into the door of the municipal market.

Perhaps that's why "40 to 50 people have already been through our plant to see the new equipment," said Wagner.

But he assured the board that despite all the visitors, he is not getting distracted.  "I promise you we will get what we want," he said.

Storm Grates and Potholes

What authority board member Tom Carroll would like, on the other hand, is for the borough authority to lend a financial hand to the borough in cleaning out stormwater intakes.

He showed the board a photo of a blocked intake that he took on his way to the meeting and said maybe 80 percent of those he looked at were fully or partially blocked.

He asked the board to direct the administration to see if the authority could legally provide funding to the borough for the clean-outs using the logic that if stormwater doesn't go into the inlet, it will ultimately find its way into the sanitary sewer system, costing the authority money.

Carroll could not get any of the other board members to second his motion, but it came up again at the end of the night when the topic of a street sweeper came up.

Finance Director Janice Lee said in 2014, the borough hired a company to sweep all Pottstown's streets once, at a cost of $15,000. It was done again in 2015 at a cost of $20,000.

Yerger said in each case, between two and three tons of grit and stones were removed from the streets, all things which get washed into and clog stormwater sewers if they are not picked up by the street sweeper.

Carroll questioned if the cost of doing the street-sweeping was ultimately less than the cost in man-hours to have borough staffers out cleaning out each storm inlet with shovels.

"And not only that," added Borough Manager Justin Keller. "The other questions is what are we pulling them away from to clean those inlets again and again? They could be out fixing potholes."

And with that thought, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

The Story of Sludge

Sludge Dryer Project Already $1.3M Over-Budget

Pottstown Borough Authority officials insist this new Gryphon Environmental dryer system will be most cost efficient and be easier and cheaper to repair and maintain that the maintenance-plagued dryer now in operation at the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plant.

There isn't even a shovel in the ground.

In fact, the unit hasn't even been built yet.

But the project to replace the 10-year-old maintenance-plagued sewer sludge dryer at the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plant is already over budget -- by $1.3 million.

What was supposed to cost $3.7 million will now cost at least $5 million.

According to Authority Manager Justin Keller and Authority Engineer Tom Weld, the primary reason is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Not only did it take the DEP seven whole months to approve the air emissions permit, but because "the technology is new and DEP doesn't know how to regulate it, so they were very conservative," said Keller.

The Gryphon system is in place working in Kentucky, where it processes chicken waste at a Tyson plant said Weld, adding "but this is the first time it is being used to process municipal waste."

As a result, a number of upgrades were required by DEP that not only accounted for more expensive equipment -- like a "bio-filter" instead of an "air scrubber" -- but also required a bigger footprint to accommodate the new equipment.

The new equipment and larger footprint also made some of the contractors conservative with their bidding as well, so the bids came in higher, said Weld.

Lower Pottsgrove Township Manager Ed Wagner and West Pottsgrove Township Manager Craig Lloyd were both at the meeting concerned about the price jump.

Wagner said Lower Pottsgrove ratepayers face an increase of $357,000, a 27 percent increase in the amount the township budgeted for its share of dryer costs. The township's share jumped from $959,746 to $1,317,153, he said.

"My ratepayers can't afford that," he said, asking the authority to delay accepting the bids top give Lower Pottsgrove time to absorb the additional costs into its budget.

But the authority board voted unanimously to accept the bids, in large part because the current dryer is no longer worth fixing and the longer they wait, the more into the winter they get hauling untreated sludge to the landfill.

"Once we get into February, you're looking at another $350,000," warned Utilities Manager Brent Wagner.

Keller said there are several ways the cost could be brought down. One is a "fine screen" project at the sewer plant which was slated to cost $1 million has been "re-engineered" to reduce the cost to $500,000. Another $500,000 grant for which the authority has applied would, if awarded, free up $1 million to cover much of the cost over-run.

He said the media coverage over the "flushable wipes" issue had been included in the grant materials and may help its chances.

Additionally, the project is expected to take more than a year, even though the authority hopes to have the dryer online and running again by December or January.

Keller said much of the additional cost "an be pushed off to 2019, which would give the townships time to adjust their budgets for 2019."

Lloyd said as much of those additional costs that can be pushed into next year, the better for his township's budget.

Here are the Tweets from the meeting:

$3.7 Million Sludge Dryer Replacement Approved

Photos by Evan Brandt

The Pottstown Borough Authority decided Tuesday night to replace its current 10-year-old sludge dryer with this new, more efficient system.

The Pottstown Borough Authority Tuesday night voted unanimously to move forward with a $3.7 million project to replace the maintenance-plagued dryer at the sewer treatment plant and replace it with a new type of dryer.

The new system, a pressure differential dryer, has fewer moving parts and so is easier to maintain, is more energy efficient and will allow the plant to process 20 percent more sludge than it currently does, Authority Engineer Tom Weld told the board members before the vote.

W. Tid Griffin, president and CEO of Owensboro,
Ken.-based Gryphon Environmental LLC,
holds two jars of processed sludge. In his right
hand is the powder produced by the current sludge
dryer at the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment
Facility. In his left are the pellets left over from
his pressure differential dryer, which cuts down
on odor and is preferred by farmers.

The annual operational savings of nearly $700,000 over the current system means it will pay for itself within six years, he said.

"The thing practically pays for itself, it's really a no brainer," Utilities
Administrator Robert Plenderleith said as the presentation wrapped up.

The current dryer system, manufactured by Komline Sanderson, was purchased in 2007 for $6.7 million and was one of only three options on the market at the time, said Weld.

Since it was installed it has allowed the plant to produce a high-quality end product that can be used by farmers as fertilizer, or as fill. Most importantly, it does not have to buried in a landfill, a proposition that cost millions.

But the plant has been plagued with maintenance problems, forcing it to be shut down for days, meaning the plant's end-product had to be landfilled during the colder months when the dryer was off-line.

Since 2008, maintenance costs have added up to more than $2.5 million, in addition to another $5 million in hauling costs and the addition natural gas costs of $1.7 million, said Weld.

The current dryer building at the Pottstown Sewer Plant

will have to be expanded to accommodate the Gryphon dryer.

According to the average over the last three years, keeping the current dryer would mean an additional $270,000 a year in maintenance costs, compared to Gryphon's estimated $70,000 a year.

With maintenance estimates adding up to another $4.2 million by 2020 for the current system, Weld said it was time to explore other options.

The borough team looked at five other types of sludge dryers and settled on the one manufactured by Gryphon for the reasons stated above.

Overall, the Gryphon system is estimated to save the authority about $670,000 a year, said Weld. The authority also approved a motion to begin seeking the necessary state permits as well as a tentative timeline which has the system coming on-line in October of 2018.

The current borough dryer produces dust, seen on the left,

as an end product. The Gryphon product is pellets, right.

That does not include the increased marketability of the end product which, unlike the dust currently produced, comes in pellet form, which farmers prefer because it is easier to distribute and cuts down on odors. As an added bonus, the new system is also expected to cut down on odor complaints at the sewer plant, said Utilities Manager Brent Wagner.

In addition to taking out the old dryer, the current building must be expanded to accommodate the Gryphon system and the work timed so that when the current dryer is off-line and being disassembled, the class B product the plant produces without the dryer can be land-applied as fertilizer, which is much cheaper than sending it to a landfill.

Griffin explains how his system works during

Tuesday night's Borough Authority Meeting

The longer timeline also allows the three townships which also send their sewage to the plant -- Lower Pottsgrove, Upper Pottsgrove and West Pottsgrove -- time to plan to pay their share.

According to a spreadsheet put together by the authority staff, Pottstown ratepayers will pay 59.67 percent of the total cost or $2.2 million.

Lower Pottsgrove, the next largest user, would pay 26.28 percent or $975,000. West Pottsgrove would cover 10.26 percent of the cost or about $380,000 and Upper Pottsgrove just 3.8 percent, or about $140,000.

The approval was not the only thing that happened at the meeting last night. Here are the Tweets about the rest.