One Utility’s Trash is Another’s Treasure: Collaboration Promotes Winning Solution for Two Facilities

After identifying gaps in the performance of their solids handling processes, two Buffalo-area municipalities sought to explore opportunities to work together for a mutually beneficial solution. The Town of Amherst (Town) needed to significantly upgrade their anaerobic digestion process to comply with regulatory requirements and were expending significant operations and maintenance funding on their sludge pelletizing system, while the nearby Buffalo Sewer Authority (BSA) operated one of three multiple hearth furnaces for the combustion of sludge, but was not running near full capacity for the operation of one furnace.Therefore, in 2007, the Town of Amherst (Town) and the Buffalo Sewer Authority (BSA) jointly sought and received a Governmental Efficiency Grant through New York State to evaluate and implement a solution that could benefit both entities.This paper discusses the approach used in the evaluation of the project, the alternatives evaluated, and the challenges during implementation of the recommended alternative. The Town built a sludge cake offloading facility to haul sludge to the Buffalo Sewer Authority’s wastewater treatment plant, while the BSA installed improvements at their facilities to receive and convey sludge cake from outside entities, to either incineration or digestion processes. The overall project showed that collaboration between two wastewater utilities in devising and implementing a regional approach had great benefits to both parties. The Town was able to decommission much of its aging equipment in the solids treatment train, while the BSA was able to gain a new revenue source, while also have the opportunity to increase incinerator operational performance and improve their anaerobic digestion biogas production.