Mayor: Tenino Could Turn Human Waste Into Fertilizing Biosolids Within Three Years
Within three years, Tenino Mayor Wayne Fournier wants to install a compost system at the Tenino Wastewater Treatment Plant that will turn human waste into fertilizer.
The product of the composting will be what are referred to as class A biosolids, the product of wastewater treatment processes that are treated to the point of containing no pathogens such as E. coli or salmonella.
In the last year, Tenino has contracted with several septage companies to have them bring in the solids they obtain from people’s septic tanks and pay to have them dumped into Tenino’s biosolids lagoon.
The lagoon, which is on the site of the wastewater treatment plant, is full of what are called class B biosolids, produced either by Tenino’s membrane batch reactors and a filtration process or from the solid product of someone’s septic tank.