Biosolids Management School of Hard Knocks: Lessons Learned and Resulting Recommendations

Members of the Orange County Sanitation District's (OCSD) staff have been out in the field and have learned some important lessons from the school of hard-knocks that may be useful to others.In July 2003, OCSD in California became the first agency in the nation to be certified by the National Biosolids Partnership (NBP) for its biosolids Environmental Management System (EMS). This certification was one of the first milestones in the continuing evolution of OCSD's biosolids program. Our agency has observed several operational improvements and benefits along the way. In the spirit of the EMS, OCSD is continuing to improve its public outreach and participation program based on furthering biosolids industry knowledge and understanding of how to deal with interested parties, better education in public participation, and hands-on experiences. This paper will provide an overview of some recent hard-learned lessons and how we've incorporated this into our EMS-based biosolids program.