From: Chris Hornback <CHornback@NACWA.ORG>

To: Amy Hambrick/RTP/USEPA/US@EPA 

Date: 11/19/2010 10:54 AM 

Subject: Kern County approves biosolids incineration project 

Amy, 

Thought you might be interested in this. We mentioned it yesterday. Kern County has banned land 

application and is now encouraging combustion with energy recovery. 

Thanks again for your help organizing yesterday’s meeting. 

Chris 

 

Chris Hornback 

Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs 

National Association of Clean Water Agencies 

1816 Jefferson Place, NW 

Washington, DC 20036 

www.nacwa.org

 

T: 202.833.9106 

F: 202.833.4657 

 
Planners approve facility to burn sewage sludge 

BY JAMES BURGER , Californian staff writer 

jburger@bakersfield.com | Friday, Nov 12 2010 01:53 PM 

Last Updated Friday, Nov 12 2010 01:53 PM 

Kern County planning commissioners approved a Kern County company's plan to burn the sewage sludge and green 

waste it currently uses to make compost, generating 13.5 megawatts of power. 

The project would add a power plant to the existing facility where Liberty Composting currently mixes sewage 

sludge and greenwaste to make a soil amendment. 

Commissioner Pete Belluomini said buffalo chips were used for power generation a long time ago. Now, it's just a 

little more complicated, he said. 

"This is recycling to make energy," Belluomini said. "I think this kind of fits the direction we're going." 

Commissioner Chris Babcock said the large amount of fly ash that will be a byproduct of the process needs to be 

recycled as part of concrete or on farmland. 

But he also supported the project. 

The power business, Liberty Energy, would be built next door to the composting facility on a spot about 10 miles 

northwest of Lost Hills. 

The two facilities would share the same "feedstock," around 700,000 tons a year of treated human and industrial 

waste and an additional amount of greenwaste. 

Leaders of the Liberty businesses acknowledged that there is a lot of local sensitivity about the issue of sewage 

sludge, which is also called biosolids. 

"This project is involved in an emotional product -- biosolids. Kern County has been the hotbed of biosolids 

controversy for 14 years now," said Wilson Nolan, speaking for Liberty Energy. "We see this as an answer to 

Measure E. We feel this is a way of taking the biosolids off the land." 

Steve Ketler of Liberty Energy said the change in business model was driven by a new San Joaquin Valley Air 

Pollution Control District regulation that limits the size of outdoor composting facilities. 

The goal of the regulation is to reduce the release of volatile organic compounds, a greenhouse gas, said air district 

spokeswoman Brenda Turner. 

With the San Joaquin Valley facing fines and other penalties for failing to meet federal pollution-reduction 

standards, "We've got to get reductions anywhere we can get them," Turner said. 

Ketler said the project would reduce VOC emissions from the project by 98 percent. 
The sewage sludge would be kept in sealed silos and transferred through pipes into the combustion chambers of the 

three proposed turbine buildings. 

There, according to county reports, the sludge and greenwaste would be heated to produce gases that would be 

burned to create steam, which would power an electrical power generator. 

Nolan said the company had the choice of making a large investment to build an enclosed composting facility that 

would consume a large amount of power -- or building a facility that would actually produce energy. 

Tom Frantz of the Association of Irritated Residents was the only person who spoke out against the project. 

"You're going to allow them to bring more sewage sludge here," Frantz said. "This is simply a disposal facility for 

biosolids."