Ohio city to address sewage overflow
By Amanda Smith-Teutsch
Sewage overflow problems at a
municipal sewer system will be
addressed under a new agreement between the city of Akron,
Ohio, the U.S. EPA, the state of
Ohio and the U.S. Justice Department.
According to a Clean Water Act
settlement lodged last week in
federal court, the city must develop and implement a plan to reduce or eliminate untreated overflows of sewage and stormwater
from its sewer system and bypass-es around secondary treatment at
the wastewater treatment plant.
“The federal Clean Water Act
requires that cities act to eliminate
or reduce their sewage overflows
into the nation’s rivers, lakes and
oceans,” said John Cruden, acting
Assistant Attorney General for the
Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “We are pleased that the city
of Akron has agreed to take the
steps necessary to upgrade its
sewer system. These steps will
improve water quality in the
Cuyahoga River and its tributaries, protect public health, and enhance recreation and other public
uses of the river.”
The settlement resolves a lawsuit brought by the federal government against the city in February 2009, which the state of
Ohio later joined. The lawsuit
accused the city of illegally discharging more than 1 billion gallons of raw sewage and untreated wastewater from its sewer
system and treatment plant into
the Cuyahoga River, the Little
Cuyahoga, the Ohio Canal and
their tributaries every year.
According to a statement released by the city of Akron, in
reaching the agreement, the U.S.
and Ohio EPAs recognized Akron
had made investments in excess of
$53 million in upgrading its sewer
system since 1993. Improvements
include construction of the Cuyahoga Street Storage Facility,
which captures more than 36% of
the combined sewer overflow volume from the system.
The Cuyahoga River flows
through Cuyahoga Valley National Park and the Cleveland
metropolitan area to Lake Erie.
In addition to eliminating the
overflows and discharge, and full
compliance with environmental
standards by 2028, the city must
expand its sewer plant capacity
by 20 million gallons daily within
six years, according to the EPA.
In addition to the improve-
ment plans, the city agreed to
pay a $500,000 fine and provide
$900,000 to remove a dam on the
Cuyahoga River, a project the
EPA said it believes will result in
a significant improvement in water quality.
“This settlement will lead to
significant improvement in the
quality of the water flowing into
the Cuyahoga River,” Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray
said. “It’s a credit to all parties
involved that we were able to resolve this difficult problem, but I
especially commend the city of
Akron for their commitment to
improve the environment and
the health of the public.”
Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic
said the agreement allows the
city to focus its efforts and financial resources on correcting problems with the plant instead of
fighting lawsuits in court.
“Akron began in 1994 on the
studies necessary to make logical
decisions on how to overcome the
problem of inheriting combined
sewers that were last built in
1938,” Plusquellic said. “Despite
the agreement we reached with
the state of Ohio seven years ago,
the U.S. EPA was especially unreasonable in applying rational,
affordable standards to our situation. We fought to keep costs down
for our citizens and even gave in
to federal demands, in particular
on the issue of fines, because of
the huge cost of litigation.”
He added that he believed the
city followed regulations and
guidelines set in place. ■
Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Amanda Smith-Teutsch at 330-865-
6166 or asmith-teutsch@crain.com
Ohio grocers to
try composting
By Amanda Smith-Teutsch
Ohio grocers are exploring composting programs with help from
the Ohio Grocers Association and
the state Department of Natural Resources.
“We were approached in 2007 by
ODNR, and they gave us a grant to
write a composting and diversion
program for OGA members,” said
Tonya Woodruff of the Ohio Grocers Association. “But before we
could do that, we needed to do a pilot because this was all new to us.”
A consultant was hired to examine local grocery stores in the state
and to make recommendations on
how best to start the program.
Woodruff said the Cincinnati-based
Kroger company volunteered 24 of
its retail groceries for the program.
Woodruff said some of the
stores elected to convert one of
their trash compactors solely for
organic waste use, and other elected to separate organics in an
8-yard trash bin behind the store.
“The challenge was to find a hauler
to get it from their store to a composting site,” she said.
There was a steep learning
curve, she said. For example, the
stores didn’t know how often to
schedule normal trash pickup with
the new diversion program in place.
“After a busy weekend at a store,
trash was overflowing into the
parking lot, which absolutely cannot happen,” she said.
After a period of trial and error, a
pickup schedule was developed,
she said. After showing no initial
cost savings, the program is now
cost-neutral or operating slightly at
a savings to the store, she said.
Kroger’s 24 Columbus-division
stores participated in the program
for four months in 2008. During
that time, the stores diverted 2,334
tons of organic waste to state-ap-proved composting facilities. The
difficulty, Woodruff said, was finding haulers and composting facilities. At the time, there were only
two or three compost facilities in
the state where the stores could
take their organic waste, she said.
“We would love to expand this
throughout the state,” Woodruff
said. “Now there are more haulers,
which may make it easier.”
Woodruff said other grocery
chains in the state are considering
composting programs.
Dan Donovan, spokesman for the
Giant Eagle grocery chain, said his
company supported the plans being
developed by the Ohio Grocers Association. “At Giant Eagle, we have taken numerous steps to recycle many
organic materials,” he said. ■
Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Amanda Smith-Teutsch at 330-
865-6166 or asmith-teutsch@crain.com
Southern Company takes
over Texas biomass plant
By Amanda Smith-Teutsch
The Southern Company has
undertaken a new 100-megawatt
biomass power plant, operating
off industrial and clean municipal wood waste, at the Nacogdoches Generating Facility in
Sacul, Texas.
Southern Power, a subsidiary
of The Southern Company,
bought the project from American Renewables in October. Power from the plant is committed to
Austin, Texas’ municipal power
utility via a 20-year power purchase agreement.
Total cost of the project will be
between $475 million and $500
million. Operation of the plant is
expected to begin in 2012.
Fuel for the plant is expected
to come from logging and mill activity as well as clean urban
wood waste and used pallets.
The plant is expected to produce
approximately 100 megawatts of
electric power annually. The
company installing the boiler,
Metso Corp. of Helsinki said the
boiler system will be one of the
largest biomass boilers in the
world.
“Southern Company continues
to develop and deploy smarter
and cleaner energy technologies,
including increased energy efficiency, nuclear power, clean coal
and renewables,” said David
Ratcliffe, Southern Company
An artist’s rendering shows the Nacogdoches Generating Facility, a new 100-
megawatt biomass power plant in Sacul, Texas, that The Southern Company
has undertaken. Southern Power, a subsidiary of The Southern Company,
bought the project from American Renewables in October.
chairman, president and CEO.
“This project represents another
step in developing a diverse portfolio to meet the nation’s growing
energy demands.”
Fagen Inc. of Granite Falls,
Minn., will provide engineering,
procurement and construction
services. The firm announced a
number of subcontractors on the
project, including Zachry Engineering, Metso Power, Mitsubishi
Power Systems Americas and
Wolf Material Handling Systems.
Southern Company officials
said construction of the Nacogdoches facility will take about 32
months and will generate about
300 construction jobs. When it
begins operating, the plant will
require 40 permanent employees.
The plant will require approximately 1 million tons of fuel annu-
ally. Officials with Southern Company said they would make an effort to procure fuel for the plant
within a 75-mile radius of the site.
The Nacogdoches plant is one
of two Southern Company biomass projects. The Georgia Public Service Commission in March
approved Georgia Power’s application to convert its 96-megawatt
Plant Mitchell near Albany, Ga.,
to biomass. Georgia Power serves
2. 25 million customers.
Atlanta-based Southern Company provides 4.4 million customers across four states with
electricity and has more than
42,000 megawatts of generating
capacity. ■
Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Amanda Smith-Teutsch at 330-865-
6166 or asmith-teutsch@crain.com
Stericycle cleared to acquire competitor MedServe
By Amanda Smith-Teutsch
Antitrust concerns have been
cleared to allow Stericycle’s acquisition of MedServe Inc. on
schedule this quarter.
Stericycle Inc. reached an
agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the states of
Missouri and Nebraska to allow
the purchase of competitor MedServe Inc.
Stericycle officials expect the
deal will be finalized during the
fourth quarter of 2009, as previously announced.
The agreement, reached under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of
1976, requires Stericycle to di-
vest certain assets that it will
acquire from MedServe, including an autoclave treatment facility in Newton, Kan., four
transfer stations in Kansas,
Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma, and large customer accounts and associated assets related to the facilities.
Also, the company will have to
notify the federal and state governments before acquiring any
business that is engaged in both
the collection and treatment of
infectious waste in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma
for the next decade.
In a related development,
Stericycle and MedServe agreed
to reduce the purchase price
from $185 million to $182.5 million, subject to further reduction for MedServe’s indebtedness as of the closing date and
other expenses related to the
transaction. ■
Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Amanda Smith-Teutsch at 330-865-
6166 or asmith-teutsch@crain.com
