Despite incurring some unexpected costs, the City of Merritt says operating its own biosolids composting facility is still expected to be a net-zero venture.

The city will need to spend about $250,000 to replace a broken compost loader at the biosolids composting facility it recently paid $300,000 to acquire.

The loader turns over and moves piles of the city’s biosolids.

“It’s an integral part of the operation,” City of Merritt chief administrative officer Shawn Boven told council at a January budget meeting.

“We can’t operate without a moving loader,” he told the Herald

Despite needing to spend nearly the same money on a single loader as it did acquiring the entire operation, Boven said this will all still cost the city less than what it cost to have the site contracted out.

He said the projected expense to operate the site for 2016 is $193,845 — including $33,000 for equipment financing.

By comparison, when the Sunshine Valley Good Earth Company operated the composting site, the city was budgeting about $230,000 annually in tipping fees to have its biosolids composted.

The city intends to finance the loader over a 10-year-lease at an annual cost of about that $33,000.

A request for proposal for the new loader, which will replace two other pieces of equipment on site, will be made in the spring after council’s budget process.

NOT WORTH IT TO FIX

The old loader is nearly 40 years old and to repair it would cost at least $35,000.

Public works superintendent Darrell Finnigan said he had anticipated having this piece of equipment for a number of years, however, one of the drive shafts broke off and wrecked the bottom of the transmission.

“It’s just not worth it [to fix],” Finnigan said.

The city paid the Good Earth Company $300,000 in 2015 to acquire the biosolids composting site, along with its inventory and composting equipment.

Coun. Linda Brown said she was “having difficulty” with the request for a new loader.

“I thought we were going to have a few years without having purchase a new piece of equipment,” Brown said.

Merritt Mayor Neil Menard said this kind of problem comes with the territory.

“My dad sold a car to a friend and he drove two blocks and blew the motor, so that kind of stuff happens,” Menard said.

“I don’t know that this is something we couldn’t anticipate … it was  an old piece of junk to begin with and we paid top dollar for it,” Brown replied.

This loader was the only one on site and in the meantime the city is renting one.

BIO-SALES

In addition to spending less on operating the facility, the city is projecting they will see an increase in revenue.

The city estimates it will generate $20,000 per year from selling biosolids compost.

“There will be compost sales. We will be selling compost to other businesses, I think the [Thompson-Nicola Regional District] has purchased it in the past, and residents,” City of Merritt financial director Sheila Thiessen told council.

The city’s previous revenue from the compost site was $6,000 a year in rent the Good Earth Company paid when it operated the site.

“It’s kind of an exciting thing to be taking over because we’re not really in the compost sales business, we can take it as far as we want, or not. We could have a free compost giveaway day,” Boven told council. “We’re really in the business of processing our biosolids and we need room to do that.”

THE PROCESS

Class A biosolids from the City of Merritt’s wastewater treatment plant are treated at its new composting site on Airport Road.

The city is increasing the number of times it’s obligated to tests its biosolids for contaminants. Rather than testing twice, as per the Organic Matter Recycling Regulation, Boven said the city will test four times per year.

“In the matter of public interest and safety, we’ll go well above and beyond the legislative requirements,” Boven told council.

Doing so means bringing in a specialist to test the biosolids, which costs the city about $10,000 annually. Most of that expense is made up of fees for lab work.

The process at the site involves mixing the biosolids in a bin with about two-thirds wood fibre, water and Tim Hortons coffee grounds, and then the mixture is heated between 55 and 75 degrees C.

After about two weeks, the mixture is turned and flipped into a new bin, where it stays for another several weeks.

This aerobic process forces oxygen through the bins as microbes (single-celled organisms) break down the material.

After a few more weeks, the mixture gets moved into windrows, where it continues to cure and compost.

The entire process of turning Merritt’s biosolids into compost takes about a year.

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