| Lenoir, North Carolina: Photo Tour Narrated by Monte Wall and Mike Pipes |
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Lenoir, North Carolina is a growing community with a population of 15,902. This progressive city, accented by its scenic background, takes pride in its strong community spirit. The office of Public Works and Engineering (below center) is just one example of the city’s efforts to protect it’s environment. |  |
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Hello! I am Monte Wall |
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Monte Wall (left), Superintendent of WWTP's Mike Pipes (right), Chief Operator |
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The City operates two wastewater treatment facilities. The Gun Powder Plant is a SBR plant and the liquid sludge is hauled to the Lower Creek facility. Lower Creek is a 3 MGD Extended Air type plant. |
The combined operations produce about 5,000,000 gallons per year of sludge at 3% solids. These solids are dewatered to produce approximately 600 tons of cake per year, which is beneficially co-utilized as Lenoir Blends™. |
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Lenoir Blends™
are beneficially utilized throughout the community in both residential applications and farm applications. |
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| Much of the farm
land in Lenoir has been turned into housing developments and recreational fields, such as this soccer field, where biosolids have been spread. |
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| Many of our fields
are located close to our homes and, therefore, odors are a particular concern to the City of Lenoir. |
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Furniture manufacturing is one of the primary industries of Lenoir, which generates saw dust and wood ash as a by-product. These products typically had gone to the land fill. |
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| The City, working
in partnership with local progressive industries, looked at how the by-product from the local furniture plants could enhance the biosolids product while also reducing the load to the landfill. |
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| Lenoir
Blends™ are a combination of Class A Pasteurized™ biosolids, wood ash and saw dust from the furniture plants. This is an exceptional quality product that is friable, stackable and free of offensive odors. |
Lenoir Blends™ are loaded into trucks |
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| and hauled
to local land application sites. |
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| Brickyard
Farms |
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Joe Spencer
and his son, John, have been using Lenoir Blends™ since the first day of operation. Joe said, "I knew from the start that this was going to be a good product." Joe has told us that "I had lots of broomstraw in some of the pastures before I started using the product, and now you don't see any broomstraw in my fields. It's a good product and you ought to be able to put a fee on it." |
| Joe Spencer is
saving $25-$30 per acre on commercial fertilizers and getting better results. |
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| Walter Snipes
tells us, "It's a good product and I am well pleased. I have never had any odor complaints, but I used to get lots when I sprayed chicken manure. My wife used to say, 'You're going to spread that ... it's going to stink!'." |
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Walter Snipes was in Germany during World War II. He tells us, " I stayed around for about a year after the war ended and I was quite interested in their farming practices. Those German farmers saved everything. They would pile the manure, wash out the barns into pits and gather leaves from the woods. I never saw such crops and they never used any fertilizers." |
That is exactly what we are doing with Lenoir Blends™. We are gathering materials, pasteurizing them to kill pathogens and returning them to the earth. This will build top soil. |
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| The biosolids are
processed in RDP's EnVessel Pasteurization™ Process, shown here at the Lenoir Wastewater Treatment Plant. |
| The sludge is dewatered on a 2.0 meter Belt Filter Press and then augered into the EnVessel Pasteurization™ Process System. |
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| Lenoir bin used to add wood ash and sawdust to the biosolids before EnVessel Pasteurization™. |
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| The EnVessel Pasteurization™ System is a simple, compact arrangement that processes the biosolids in 30 minutes. |
| After the biosolids have been in the
Pasteurization Vessel for 30 minutes, they are discharged onto an Inclined Belt Conveyor. |
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| The biosolids are then stored in a covered storage building prior to distribution and marketing. |
| Below is Mr. Jim Hipp (right), our Town Manager, and Mr. George Bernhart, Sr. (center), a City Council Member, receiving their EPA award at the WEFTEC Conference in New Orleans in 1999. |
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| Lenoir, North Carolina "Planning for
the Future ~ Building on Yesterday" |
