MONROE - Monroe's wastewater treatment plant is overstocked with sludge cake, the oozy, residual material that has been mostly dewatered by the treatment process.
According to Colin Simpson, the city's public works director, the cake storage facility is currently filled to capacity, and the plant will produce another 1,600 cubic yards, or 1,300 tons, of cake between now and fall.
That's about two semi-truck loads of cake every day between now and late September that needs to be disposed of.
The farm fields where the utility spreads the material as fertilizer will not be available until November; they are currently planted in corn and soybeans. The Department of Natural Resources maintains strict rules that must be followed in the land application process, which also limits the city's ability to find the amount of land it needs for cake disposal.
The city has been hauling excess cake to the Janesville landfill on an emergency basis.
Simpson said he and utility staff have evaluated many options for handling the excess. He presented three options to the Board of Public Works Monday, all of which will increase expenses by as much as $50,000 this year.
The board voted for the utility to continue hauling the cake to Janesville and directed Simpson to continue investigating an option to purchase new Dumpsters as temporary storage. Simpson said the bins could be hosed out when they are emptied this fall and made available for resale. He is looking into purchasing new bins from Poynette Iron Works and the possibility of selling the used bins to Advanced Disposal, which buys its garbage bins from the same company.
Renting and handling Dumpsters for the excess storage and then applying the cake in the fall would be the least expensive of the options at about $46,000 to $50,000, but Simpson said Dumpsters for rent are hard to find and the city may have to look for a supply from several companies and out-of-state.
Purchasing 39 new bins at $4,500 each with an optimistic resale value of $4,000, and with handling and cake application costs, would run an estimated $29,800.
Pulling all the excess cake to Janesville is estimated to cost $51,900.
The city is advertising for farm land owners to accept its fertilizer for free. Ag land must meet several requirements to be acceptable by the DNR regulations.
According to Colin Simpson, the city's public works director, the cake storage facility is currently filled to capacity, and the plant will produce another 1,600 cubic yards, or 1,300 tons, of cake between now and fall.
That's about two semi-truck loads of cake every day between now and late September that needs to be disposed of.
The farm fields where the utility spreads the material as fertilizer will not be available until November; they are currently planted in corn and soybeans. The Department of Natural Resources maintains strict rules that must be followed in the land application process, which also limits the city's ability to find the amount of land it needs for cake disposal.
The city has been hauling excess cake to the Janesville landfill on an emergency basis.
Simpson said he and utility staff have evaluated many options for handling the excess. He presented three options to the Board of Public Works Monday, all of which will increase expenses by as much as $50,000 this year.
The board voted for the utility to continue hauling the cake to Janesville and directed Simpson to continue investigating an option to purchase new Dumpsters as temporary storage. Simpson said the bins could be hosed out when they are emptied this fall and made available for resale. He is looking into purchasing new bins from Poynette Iron Works and the possibility of selling the used bins to Advanced Disposal, which buys its garbage bins from the same company.
Renting and handling Dumpsters for the excess storage and then applying the cake in the fall would be the least expensive of the options at about $46,000 to $50,000, but Simpson said Dumpsters for rent are hard to find and the city may have to look for a supply from several companies and out-of-state.
Purchasing 39 new bins at $4,500 each with an optimistic resale value of $4,000, and with handling and cake application costs, would run an estimated $29,800.
Pulling all the excess cake to Janesville is estimated to cost $51,900.
The city is advertising for farm land owners to accept its fertilizer for free. Ag land must meet several requirements to be acceptable by the DNR regulations.