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January 13, 2006County, WRS are in talksStored waste may be headed for regional plantTRAVERSE CITY - Tens of thousands of gallons of liquid industrial waste stored outside Williamsburg Receiving and Storage's cherry processing plant may be headed to a regional sewer plant.Grand Traverse County officials are negotiating with WRS to treat some of its processing wastewater. The company - under investigation by state environmental regulators for a litany of problems -plans to gradually draw down a 4-million gallon storage lagoon by trucking waste to public sewer systems and other treatment facilities. A November breach of the lagoon spilled about a million gallons of liquid waste at the Whitewater Township site. "Both from an economic standpoint and an environmental standpoint, this is probably the best way to do it," said Ross Childs, interim head of Grand Traverse County's Department of Public Works. Processing costs have not yet been determined. The city of Ludington had problems handling WRS's liquid waste two years ago. Sewer plant superintendent Doug Beadle said the city stopped taking it after three months because the company quit making payments and still owes about $3,800. Beadle added the waste was four to five times stronger than indicated in WRS's data. "Things went well for the first month - then they really went south," he said. Treating privately generated waste is a new venture for the Traverse City plant, officials said. A $30 million upgrade two years ago expanded capacity. Previously, the plant ran at full throttle, serving the city and five adjoining townships. Sewer plant operators said the WRS waste is high in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) because it's high in sugar content and chlorides and needs more treatment than typical sewer gray water. "It's much stronger than standard wastewater. It's more comparable to septage waste," said Scott Blair, project manager for OMI, which runs the Traverse City plant. The liquid waste would flow through the county's septage treatment facility before it goes to the sewer plant. Blair said the plan is to gradually phase in the material. The plant initially will accept one truckload a day - around 10,000 gallons - followed by a 24-hour waiting period while plant workers assess the treatment process. It could expand to two to four trucks per day. See Related Stories: [an error occurred while processing this directive] |