City Receives Permit Modification to Begin Land Application at NRWWTP

The last time biosolids were applied to the City of Raleigh’s Neuse River Wastewater Treatment Plant’s (NRWWTP) land application fields was September 2002.  For as much as 30 years, the City used this land to apply biosolids  and produce crops for non-human consumption such as animal feed.  Many of these applications occurred in the 1980’s and 1990’s before federal regulations were in place, before the State fully understood land application rates for biosolids and before the City grasped the concept of nutrient management and groundwater protection.  The City agreed to cease all onsite application activities and evaluate the site’s groundwater conditions.  As a result, the City collected and analyzed numerous groundwater, surface water, soil and plant tissue samples.  Ground penetrating radar was used to identify subsurface geology and deep drilling was used to identify not only the depth to bedrock but deep groundwater conditions.

The results  from these analyses were studied and modeled, and it was concluded that a subsection of the fields could, in fact, be land applied at agronomic rates with no impacts to groundwater at the compliance boundaries.  In September 2013, the City received a permit from the State of North Carolina to once again land apply on  354 acres as part of the land application program; and in December 2013 the first land application of biosolids at the NRWWTP was applied.