Fire halts production at biosolids plant

Quincy, Mass.-A stubborn fire in the ventilation system Oct. 28 has shut down, possibly until late January, biosolids production at the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s plant here, MWRA officials confirmed last week. In the meantime, they reported that hundreds of tons are being trucked to landfills in the area, a situation that is causing concern in the community about increased truck traffic. “We’re not sure how long the repairs will take,” MWRA spokeswoman Ria Convery told Green Markets. “The best case situation would be mid-December; the worst case late January.” Convery reported that the plant is still able to dewater and dry but can’t do the palletizing, which leaves a lot of what is called “sludge cake” to dispose of. She said that the MWRA and its contractor, New England Fertilizer Co., are completing a damage assessment and hope to have a better estimate of how long repairs will take. She said a contingency plan has been in place for some time to deal with such an incident by trucking the sludge to predetermined landfills in the New England area and “we’ll be working closely with the community to make sure there’s not a problem. If need be, we’ll explore (transporting by) rail.” Press reports indicated earlier that rail cars were being rounded up to ship to another landfill in central Utah, but the word at New England Fertilizer was that this wasn’t the case. Convery said the fire was caused by “an accumulation of stuff” inside the vent pipe, which is about three feet in diameter and runs horizontally across the ceiling of the plant. That made it difficult for firefighters to extinguish, because it was almost impossible to get into the pipe. “So we got permission from the firefighters to use a sewer cleaning machine to suck out the burning material. But it still smoldered for a couple of days,” she said. One plant worker who was having difficulty breathing because of the smoke was taken to a hospital for observation. New England Fertilizer Co. is responsible for managing and operating the 164 dry st/d solids processing facility at Quincy. The company has contracts with local farmers and also ships biosolids to Florida and other parts of the country.