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Municipal | Residential/Commerical | Industrial | Current
The Hammond Water Reuse Project
The Center for the Transformation of Waste Technology and the Sanitary District of Hammond, Indiana have begun collaborative work on a significant project that will virtually eliminate the discharge of treated sewage/effluent into the waste branch of the Grand Calumet River. Once completed, the project will eliminate the current discharge of 38 million gallons a day that now flows into the river. Not just an environmental clean up coup, the project will treat and redirect environmentally friendly nutrients to more than 11,351 acres of farmland, golf courses, cemeteries and parks while bringing much needed municipal income and approximately 600+ jobs to the Hammond area. Inspired by the Clean Water Act of 1972 model for converting waste to revenue, the project plans to use revenues generated in the sale of the nutrients to reduce municipal operation and maintenance costs, as well as finance other important environmental improvement projects.
How It Works
In a safe and “closed cycle” where every nutritional component of the treated effluent is absorbed and utilized through natural biological processes, fertilizer components like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium will be delivered at a rate of 45 inches per year for
30 years. By eliminating the 38 million gallons a day of treated effluent and converting it to more than 73,722,120 lbs. of safe nutrients (over the 30-year period), the project is guaranteed to have a positive, if not monumental, impact on the total quality of water downstream. This degree of forward thinking action in regards to environmental impact, if adopted regionally, will dramatically improve the water quality of Lake Michigan. If it were adopted nationwide by more municipalities, the program could radically change and reclaim thousands of square miles of the Gulf of Mexico that have been “killed” by effluent discharges and fertilizer runoff in the last 20 years.
The ground breaking Hammond Water
Reuse Project
will change the way people
think about treated sewage
and its
potential short and long range benefits.
The program will:
• Eliminate the discharge of treated effluent into the west branch of the Grand Calumet River
• Recycle what were once considered environmental hazards into clean nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to benefit farmland and other agriculturally based operations
• Increase productivity and profitability of both crop and livestock farming operations
• Provide reasonably priced feedstock for renewable energy sources like ethanol and biogases growing the entire region’s agricultural economy
• Generate revenues through the sale of carbon credits, fertilizers and increased productivity yields
• Reduce operating and maintenance costs for municipalities
• Fund other important environmental programs
• Generate up to 600+ jobs for the region
• Reduce tax payer fees for municipalities
• Demonstrate a technology application that will
eventually change the way the world thinks about
“the profitability of sewage”
Learn More:
