In the Inland Northwest USA we have extensive slackwater sediments left by multiple glacial flood events. Most are in Washington State (see map of Lake Lewis). In some places, they are shot full of clastic dikes, a concern because they might provide a preferential pathway for contaminants reaching groundwater.

Short circuiting of contaminants down dike structures is enough of a concern that Washington Department of Ecology has us assess clastic dike presence during siting studies of industrial wastewater sprayfields (see WDOE-9336, page 12).

An actual occurrence of this type of pollutant short circuiting is yet to be documented, but that doesn’t keep clastic dikes from being one of the more fascinating features of Washington soils and geology.

All of us working with biochar recognize this as a critically important issue.  One is left to wonder how much more effective recent federal research would have been if it had included a robust characterization of the biochar stock provided by the fast pyrolysis industries.

That research often does a poor job in controlling for the liming effect of the biochar.  How much of a boost to productivity would you get with just the liming effect absent the charcoal?  This clearly matters and, as I have shared with some of the Working Group members, I would like to see acid neutralizing potential or ANP ( in units of calcium carbonate equivalent or CCE) be at least considered as a labeling requirement. Other aspects are more critical, but even a coarse rating of low-med-high ANP would be very useful. Acid neutralizing potential is usually low in biochar, between 1 and 2% CCE. On the other hand, some biochar stocks can have substantial ANP above 20% and as a consequence could alter forested soil ecology in unintended ways. Out here in the inland Western US and Canada, our soils are less acidic than in the East, thus the same ANP application basis that will have no discernible effect on soil pH in the East, could move our soils from pH 7 to 8. That concern is what keeps Avista’s Kettle Falls mill-waste-to-energy, high carbon, ash going into a private landfill rather than beneficially reused on our forests here, whereas ash application is accepted practice in the Eastern states. Personally, I think the Kettle Falls material could, and should, be land applied. Its just a matter of finding the appropriate site conditions.

Range managers promote the health of living soil systems as essential to sustained business viability.

That forage productivity is a function of soil health is not news. What is news is our evolving appreciation of soil health in terms of a living system. Restored soil is a highly valuable asset in most any setting, and the more intense the land use, the more to be contributed by good soil. Ecological restoration and urban redevelopment have much to gain from the grazing schools of soil husbandry.

There are lots of bits to this puzzle, but when it comes to sustaining life in soil, the energy bit is not to be forgotten. Mulch and compost delivers food energy. Soy bean meal, used to improve soil structure in public turf and playing fields, works similarly.

Cover crops and woody vegetation work to sustain a healthy symbiotic rhizospheric soil community on root exudate rich in food energy. This is a different microbial community than is working on the sloughed root mass, on soy bean meal, mulch and compost – a healthy soil has both a rhizosheric community and a bulk (jargon for outside the rhizospheric soil enveloping the root) soil community thriving in concert.

Gary Jones has posted about this article also, and alludes to a food energy feast available in the context of pulse grazing.

Pulse grazing jolts the system in a good way, and there is a lesson to be learned here that is applicable to urban soils where drastic disturbance often causes the system to loses species diversity. When it comes time to revive soil life, the rate of restoration is slowed by a combination of extremely low population, an excess of predators which restrict re-population, and absent the species diversity needed to share in the restoration dynamic. Pulsed management is an important tool for overcoming this inertia.

Building a diverse palette of soil microbial species in a drastically disturbed site, this is a worthwhile challenge, this is the acme of success. Soil health, wealth, and wisdom.

Located south of the city, Ellensburg's municipal wastewater treatment facility is surrounded by Twin City Foods industrial wastewater sprayfield. The municipal treatment facility lacks aeration capacity to accommodate Twin City Foods' peak wastewater flows. The news article mentions water and dirt loading and implies nutrient loading. But the overriding need for treatment, and the reason this wastewater can't be accomodated by the City's wastewater treatment plant, is the high level of oxygen demanding constituents, as measured by COD and especially BOD. This results from the sugary juice of the fresh corn being processed. Sent to the plant, it requires more aeration that the treatment plant is capable of delivering, equipment too expensive to install and operate for the short time period it is needed. This makes land application the more economical choice for wastewater treatment. Elevated manganese and iron in the monitoring wells corroborates that oxygen demanding constituents in the wastewater are having undesirable effects on the soil.

Anaerobic soil reduces sprayfield nutrient treatment capacity and it results in plumes of anaerobic groundwater laden with reduced constituents. This condition can harbor and nurture common disease organisms that would otherwise do poorly in aerobic groundwater. Anaerobic sprayfields are generally not permitted by Washington Department of Ecology due to public health and safety concerns. On the other hand inducing anaerobic soil and discharging anaerobic groundwater are not specifically prohibited by law, necessitating a pragmatic regulatory response. This can allow anaerobic problems to persist year after year, as they have at this location. Consider the pattern of hydraulic "blinding" visible in the aerial photo below. Similar to the cheese plant sprayfield situation posted here, application uniformity and soil moisture effects on BOD treatment capacity appear to have played a more important role than could be accommodated in the sprayfield design. Not mentioned in the news article is that a change in ownership has cut off Twin City Foods from a portion of the sprayfield area. This reduction in land area has precipitated the need for a treatment lagoon, hopefully ending a decades long history of anaerobic soil failure.

Originally published at http://www.nscss.org/content/anaerobic-soil-impairs-sprayfield-ellensburg-wa

Startup design for this wastewater sprayfield near Lacey, WA was intended to closely match expanded cheese processing operations to sprayfield capacity. However the design team failed to mitigate for the risk of anaerobic failure, resulting in the hydraulic "blinding" depicted in the site photo. Curtailed plant operations resulted due to no reserve treatment capacity, impaired post-failure sprayfield treatment capacity, and no economical alternative treatment option.

Originally posted to http://www.nscss.org/content/bod-overload-cheese-processor-sprayfield