MWRD: Soil scientists receive "rave reviews"

We saw the railroad that moves a lot of biosolids to drying fields. You can follow this link for a press release that discusses the work MWRD is doing to use the biosolids as an alternative to chemical fertilizers rather than end up in a landfill. These pictures and captions are from that release.

Biosolids drying beds between the Des Plaines River and Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal

The MWRD environmental soil scientist group includes (from L-R) Lakhwinder Hundal, Dan Collins, Wale Oladeji, Dominic Brose and Kuldip Kumar. They are being recognized by the Illinois Water Environment Association for their research on how to best grow a sustainable program for the reuse of biosolids in the context of many challenges.

The end result of biosolids’ use is beautifully maintained landscapes, such as the new Maggie Daley Park, where the Chicago Park District has used 6,000 cubic yards of this valuable recovered resource from the water treatment process. After 18 months of storage for thickening and stabilization to improve quality and reduce volatile organic compounds and pathogens, the biosolids are then air-dried and resemble a dark, fine-textured topsoil that is a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers.

Update: Decades ago, I read that they used to barge the biosolids downstream to fertilize farms. Back then it was called sludge instead of biosolids.

Satellite

I assume the satellite photo shows is where they used to load the barges. But they discovered that the sludge contained heavy metals like mercury. And it probably had an interesting cocktail of pharmaceuticals that included hormones. The plants were absorbing enough of these toxins to make them unsuitable for animal consumption. That is why the biosolids are now used for land restoration instead of farm field fertilizer. Even if a kid does eat some grass, he is not going to eat a lot of it.

Satellite

The MWRD owns 13,500 acres of land that it had used for sludge disposal. It looks like they should have got the land for a bargain price because the bodies of water in the satellite image are part of the land scars of extensive strip mining of coal. MWRD is making use of this land and its soil scientists to work with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to research farming methods to reduce runoff of nitrogen and phosphorus without reducing the yield of the fields. [Press Release Feb 7, 2018]

Learning that their land was strip mined explains the value of the sludge that they were barging to this area --- strip mining removes the top soil and destroys the fertility of the land. This article explains how strip mining ravaged Southeastern Ohio lands, but I assume that similar damage was done in Illinois by some of the mining companies. In some abandoned mines, not even trees or weeds can grow in the dirt that was left on top. Given that I have seen vegetation growing out of bridge piers, the sides of rock cuts, and in abandoned buildings; strip-mined land must be toxic if no vegetation at all can grow on it.

Press Release Feb 7, 2018