NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A project that cost $117 million has come about quietly, without much fanfare or public scrutiny.
Video: Biosolids Problems Include Cost, Fire Risk
It's a new plant that converts sewage sludge into fertilizer. The city said it's an environmentally beneficial way to deal with what goes down the toilet.
But some critics have said it's a colossal waste of money, creating a product nobody seems to want and some people are downright afraid of.
It looks like Oreo cookie crumbles, but you don't dare eat it. This is what's left of what goes down a sink or toilet in Nashville once it's processed in a new, multimillion-dollar way.
Dehydrated, heat dried and shaken out as pellets, it's sewage -- human waste -- now politely called biosolids.
"When you look at the amount of sewage sludge that we had before, you know, taken down to this very small, you know, dried pellet, it's pretty amazing," said Sonia Harvat.
For years, at a cost of nearly $12,000 a day, Nashville's sludge sloshed in the beds of semi trucks, headed for the few out-of-state landfills that would still put up with the stink.
The tidier pellets are also trucked out of state, and the city is still paying for them to be hauled away.
"I believe we were paying $30 per ton to haul it. So we're currently paying $20 per ton for Manco to use it on reclamation sites, so when we have the final product, we'll be selling for $7.50 a ton and not paying for the hauling," said Harvat. "It will be a true savings."
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$117M Tennessean Biosolids Project Criticized
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$117M Biosolids Project Criticized
Plant Converts Sewage Sludge Into Fertilizer
By Demetria Kalodimos
WSMV Nashville, April 1, 2009
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