Coeur d'Alene Waste dishes out numbers

The Coeur d’Alene Wastewater Utility Department can dish it out as well as it can take it in.

That was the report from Mike Anderson on Tuesday night at the Coeur d’Alene City Council meeting, where the wastewater superintendent reported the results of the city’s second Compost Giveaway.

“It grows wonderful vegetables,” he told the Press before informing the city. “It really produces tremendous gardens for our residents.”

The “it” he referred to was roughly 200 yards of feces pulled and filtered from the city’s wastewater plant, which translates to about 2 acres of inch-thick compost. The plant sees roughly 10,000 pounds of solid matter every day.

“To make that [matter] safe, we take those solids and run it through our digester,” Anderson explained. “It rips the bacteria, killing it. That makes it a Class B biosolid.”

To get the solid waste to garden compost quality — considered Class A — the solids go through the city’s compost plant on Julia Street off Appleway, near Lowe’s.

A particular factor dramatically improved the quality of the city’s compost this year, Anderson reported. The first is their five-year inclusion in a pilot program, which involves the use of a special membrane that filters out material as small as bacteria. A quarter of the city’s waste went through this pilot program, but now, the membrane filters out everything we citizens are willing to give, roughly four million gallons of waste per day.

Last year’s giveaway provided 100 yards of compost to area residents. This year’s event, held April 20 and 21, gave out twice as much to roughly 300 people, Anderson estimated. Typically, the city sells its waste to nurseries. The program provides residents with an opportunity to capitalize once a year on the city’s resources, and while Anderson was pleased with the turnout, next year’s event might see some changes.

“It was raining that Saturday,” he said. “People were getting wet. There was a line of people waiting in the rain, so we might play with the location. We’ll see. Plus, we’ll probably schedule it on a different weekend, because this year’s was Easter weekend. That probably kept people away this year. But it was still definitely a success.”

“I think the cool part is, we generate two dump trucks full of this a day,” Anderson added. “This program does two things: First, it helps generate interest, so people know what the city is doing for them. But second, it’s a way for us to give back to the city and its citizens, so they can see an added return.”