1. Brian BaumgaertelEnvironmental Project AssistantBarnstable CountyDepartment of Health and Environment

2. Agenda What are Innovative/Alternative (I/A) wastewater treatment systems? What we do at BCDHE. Real-World I/A System Performance. Whats On the Horizon for I/A technology?Disclaimer: The presence of a product or service in the presentation is in no wayconstrued as an endorsement, advertisement or otherwise of that product or service. 3. What is an I/A System? Add-on or replacement forstandard onsite septiccomponents for enhancedwastewater treatment. Typically includes mechanicalcomponents such as pumps,filters and bacterial growthmedia. In southeastern Massachusetts,typically installed to reducenitrogen. A typical septic system. 4. Advanced treatment units manipulate thenitrogen cycle to return fixed nitrogen to theatmosphere Nitrogen returns toNitrogen from the atmosphere atmosphereis fixed into tissue by plantsOxygen deprived bacteria convert nitrate We or animals eat theto nitrogen gas. plants Leachfield bacteria We digest the food andconvert ammonium to eliminate excess nitrogennitrate (70% as urea)Septic tank bacteria convert urea to ammonium 5. Diagram of a Septic SystemStandard Septic System I/A Septic System IncomingIncoming WastewaterWastewaterSeptic TankSeptic TankRecirculation Black BoxLeach FieldLeach Field Alternative Drainfield 6. What the Barnstable County Department of Health andEnvironment is doing in the world of onsite technology. 7. MASSTC The MassachusettsSeptic System Test CenterBegan in 2000 for the purpose of testing new and innovative onsite technologies. 8. MASSTC Participants Amphidrome PhosRID Bioclere Piranha EcoPure ReCip Geoflow Drip RSF MicroFAST SeptiTech MicroSepTec Waterloo Biofilter Nitrex Zabel Scat OAR Drip Dispersal Systems Phosphex And More 9. I/A Monitoring and Compliance In 2005, BCDHE created a web-based database tocollect maintenance and sample reports for I/Asystems for 14 towns in Barnstable County. Provide the initial level of compliance on behalf oftown Boards of Health. Analyze incoming data and provide reports to thepublic to help determine efficacy of varioustechnologies and I/A in general. 10. The Benefit of Close Monitoring System maintenance is taken more seriously whenhomeowners and operators know someone iswatching. We have seen a roughly 10% improvement in systemperformance (i.e. lower effluent nitrogen) since countyprogram began. 11. Using real-world data to help clarify the question of the efficacyof I/A technologies in wastewater planning. 12. What is meant by Performance? The ability of an I/A system to remove a particular contaminant. Nitrogen 19 mg/l residential25 mg/l commercial 13. Why 19mg/l for Nitrogen?Assumptions: 2.9kg nitrogen per person per year 55 gallons water use per person per daySystem Influent Concentration:~38 mg/l Total Nitrogen50 Percent Removal:19 mg/l Total Nitrogen 14. Where Our Data Comes From1,650 I/A Systems13,500 Sample Reports100,000+Individual WaterQuality DataHouse icon is 2005-2007 Alexandre Moore used under LGPL-2.1 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html).Beaker icon is 2005 Vignoni David used under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) Points. 15. Ways to Visualize I/A Data Histograms Cumulative Frequency Box-Whisker PlotsGenerally focus onthe median. 16. Single Family System Performance50100.00%4845 454590.00%424080.00%76.9%3570.00%Cumulative Percentage of Systems 30 3030 29 60.00%Number of Systems25 2424 50.00%212020 19 1940.00%15 14 30.00% 13 13 11 26.4%1010 1010109 20.00% 65 5 44 10.00% 33 32 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 11 1 10 0 0 00.00% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45Median Total Nitrogen (mg/l) 17. Box-Whisker Diagrams Min/Max Value Min/Max Value Box Median Middle Value Whiskers 50%25% 25% Probability Density Graph (Bell Curve) 18. Box-Whisker Diagram Examples60A A Good System. Boxand whiskers are short and50compact.B A Bad System. Resultsare all over the place. Box 40and whiskers are stretchedout.30C A Consistently BadSystem. Compact but wellabove TN limit (19 mg/l)20D A Usually PrettyGood System. Compact 10but maybe a couple of highresults. 0 A B C D 19. Single Family Technologies 20. Nitrogen RemovalSingle Family Systems432 of 539 (78%)meet 19 mg/l standard 21. Nitrogen RemovalMulti-Family Systems 56 of 79 (71%) meet 19 mg/l standard 22. Nitrogen RemovalCommercial Systems 40 of 53 (75%) meet 25 mg/l standard 23. More Data Online!www.barnstablecountyhealth.org/ia-systems/information-center/data-and-statisticsInteractive I/A Data Drill down by Town Technology Building Type Data is updated on aregular basis. 24. To Sum it UpNitrogen Total Meeting Percent MeetingBuilding UseRemovalCount Standard StandardStandardSingle Family19 mg/l549 432 78%Multi-Family 19 mg/l795671%Commercial25 mg/l 534075%Total 681 528 77% 25. Currently installed I/A technologiesremove about 50 percent of incomingnitrogen about 75 percent of the time*. *Assuming our set standards (i.e. 19mg/l) are representative of 50% removal! 26. Is 19mg/l Really 50% Removal?Is 2.9 kg nitrogen/person/yeara valid assumption? Regional variation? Cultural variation? 27. What About Water Use? Is 55 gal/person/day a valid assumption? Difficult to accurately measurewater use! Dilution, Dilution, Dilution 28. Can you Validate Removal?I/A Septic System Herein lies the rub!IncomingI/A systems typically includeWastewatersome sort of effluentrecirculation back into theseptic tank, making itSeptic Tankimpossible to get a Recirculationrepresentative sample ofinfluent.Black BoxLeach Field AlternativeDrainfield 29. So Now What is 50%?50100.00%4845 45454290.00% 90%4080.00%76.9%3570.00%Cumulative Percentage of Systems 30 3030 29 60.00%Number of Systems25 2424 50.00% 50%212020 19 1940.00%15 14 30.00% 13 13 111010 1010109 20.00% 65 5 44 10.00% 33 32 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 11 1 10 0 0 00.00% 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45Median Total Nitrogen (mg/l) 30. 50% Reduction?Water Use (gpd)Mass Load (kg/p/y)45505560652.520.11 18.10 16.45 15.08 13.922.923.32 20.99 19.08 17.49 16.153.326.54 23.89 21.72 19.91 18.37 31. Ultimately it all Boils Down to aHomeowner and Their System. Uncertainty in standard leads to complianceenforcement difficulties!Example 1 Example 2A seasonal home typically occupied by A year-round home typically occupiedtwo environmentally-conscious retirees. by a family of four. They water the lawn,They dont water the lawn, installedinstalled water-saving devices but takewater-saving devices, take shortlong showers, do lots of laundry, haveshowers, &c and have installed an I/A frequent guests and have installed ansystem. I/A system.Total Nitrogen numbers come back at Total Nitrogen numbers come back at28mg/l, well in exceedance of 19mg/l. 14mg/l, below 19mg/l, but their waterDo you press compliance on theuse is through the roof. Youll probablyowners? never follow up on this system! 32. Can we Shift the Curve?Can new technologies take us to the next level? 33. Up-and-coming technologies and where we are headed in theworld of innovative onsite technology. 34. Selected MASSTC Test Results 35. NitrexTM by Lombardo Associates Upwell Class. Presently available. Generally expect TN < 5 mg/l, but this system requires pretreatment ahead in the treatment train to nitrify ammonium.From Recirculating SandHouseFilterNitrexFilter Septic TankPump Chamber Discharge 36. Membrane BioReactors (MBR)Basic ConceptSubmerse a hollow membrane inside an aeration chamber. Wastewater passes throughmembrane leaving solids behindMBR PlayersBioMicrobicsPurafloBusseSJ Rhombus Air scours the membrane and keeps it cleanKubota (and supports micro-organisms) 37. MBR Micro FiltrationIncreasing SizeGeneral sizerange of interest 38. More About MBRMBR Produces a high quality effluent Potential Installationwith potential for reuse (very lowvalues for bacteria, BOD, and TSS) 39. Sequencing Batch Reactors (SBR)Generally TN