Sustainable Solar-Dynamic Bio-Benign Design

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Sustainable

Solar-Dynamic Bio-Benign Design:

Offering Better Ways

to Live, at Less Cost Today and Tomorrow, Anywhere on Earth

 

Welcome to the

Wastewater Home Page of the Solviva Website

In here you will gain

a deeper understanding of the problems that result from current wastewater

regulations, and the effective and economical solutions that are available for

eliminating those problems, and the formidable regulatory obstacles that are

preventing the use of these solutions.

 

This lead page is

divided into 3 sections:

1) Description of the

problems, 2) Description of the Solviva Biocarbon Filter systems at my home,

and

3) Description of the

Solviva Biocarbon Filter system at the Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven, MA

 

Wastewater - Human

Waste - Sewage....these words, and the many others that we have for our body's

waste products, tend to evoke aversion. And for good reason: human wastes

contain microbes that, if improperly managed, can cause various diseases. We

therefore all agree that human wastes must be managed in ways that adequately

reduce these microbes. Human wastes also contain very high levels of nitrogen,

about 40-60 ppm (parts per million) in most wastewater, which, if released into

the groundwater causes harm to both human health and the environment. We

therefore also all agree that nitrogen release must be adequately reduced.

 

All states have

government agencies that create and enforce regulations for the management of

wastewater. In my home state of Massachusetts, this agency is the Department of

Environmental Protection (DEP).

Current regulations

for Wastewater Management fall in two main categories: 1. On-Site Septic

Systems, treating sewage from a single home or building right on the site, and

2. Centralized Sewage

Treatment, treating sewage from many homes and other buildings at a remote

location.

 

However, there are

several serious problems that are being caused by current DEP regulations:

 

Threat to Public

Health - Over 10% of drinking water wells in the US are contaminated with high

levels of nitrogen that is released from septic systems built in accordance

with government regulations. This nitrogen reduces the blood's oxygen capacity,

causing " methemoglobinemia " , which is one of the causes of

" sudden-infant-death " or " blue-baby-syndrome " , as well as

brain damage and cancer (for references, and see link " Test Result &

References " , and surf the web under key words " Nitrogen

Pollution " ).

 

Harm to the

Environment - On-site septic systems built in accordance with government

regulations are incapable of reducing nitrogen to any significant degree, and

therefore release high levels of nitrogen into the groundwater. All this

nitrogen ends up in our estuaries, ponds and harbors, whether they are 50 feet

or 10 miles away from the septic systems. This nitrogen causes vast algae

infestations that choke aquatic plants, fish and shellfish, and cause foul

odors and slimy beaches.

 

High Cost - New or

upgraded Septic Systems often cost $10,000-20,000, sometimes as much as

$50,000. Central Sewering costs many millions, with annual costs of $1500 -

$3000 per household.

 

Landscape Destruction

- Large areas are required for on-site septic systems, destroying beautiful

gardens, shrubs and trees. Central Sewage Treatment Facilities require vast

acreage, thereby destroying wildlife habitat and recreation areas.

 

 

22 beautiful trees

were cut down to upgraded this septic system, and it cost $15,000.

 

A whole woods was

destroyed for this new septic system.

 

 

The bottom of the

leaching field is 10 feet deep, below the reach of roots of trees and shrups

that could take up the nitrogen and benefit from it.

 

Sewage treatment

facilities cost many millions, even in small communities. They require vast

areas, cause foul odors, and use harmful chemicals.

 

 

Algae infestation on

Vineyard Haven Harbor, which sometimes reesult in foul odors envelopin the

whole town.

 

James Pond: 50 or so

septic systems release nitrogen into this ecosystem, previously clean and

productive, now toxic and foul. Imagine being a fish, scallop or an eelgrass

plant living in the water, where the algae pollution is a hundred times worse.

 

 

This beautiful pond is

all gummed up with foul-smelling algae.

Left: Imagine playing

on this algae-infested beach.

 

 

Large sections of this

marsh has been inundated and killed by thick layers of rotting algae slurry.

 

 

Left: Algae

infestation on Vineyard Haven Harbor, which sometimes result in foul odors

enveloping the whole town.

 

Edgartown Great Pond

polluted by excessive nitrogen.

 

Thus, it is obvious

that DEP regulations are in serious violation of the Laws of Nature

 

There are better ways

to manage wastewater!

 

For instance, the

Solviva Biocarbon Wastewater Filter Systems, which:

Reduce nitrogen

release into the groundwater by 80-90%, and therefore eliminate harm to public

health and the environment (for proof, go to the " Test Results "

page),

Cost 80-90% less to

install and maintain,

Eliminate destruction

to the landscape. In fact, the Solviva Biocarbon Wastewater Filter Systems are

actually beneficial to the landscape because they act as fertilizing and

irrigation systems!

 

Pictures of various

Solviva Biocarbon Filter Systems at my home:

 

 

A standard flushtoilet

flushes into this Brownfilter box, containing wood chips, leafmold, and

zillions of beneficial microbes and earthworms. This is Earthworm Heaven!

 

Pokeberry fertilized

with urine. Normally grows no more than 4 feet, but this gorgeous plant ended

up half way up the second floor.

 

 

One area of the Solviva

Greenfilter garden, here showing dogwood, Rosa rugosa, spruce and pine.This

area has been receiving wastewater effluent for 20 years, including standard

detergents and bleach, dispersed through perforated pipes laid in shallow

trenches winding among the flowers, shrubs and trees.

 

Compost from Solviva

Biocarbon Filter Systems: odor-free, soft, excellent well-balanced nutrients.

Great for flowers, shrubs and trees.

However, even though

it has been tested to be free of pathogens, I still believe it should not be

used for food production.

 

This vibrant flower

garden has been happily receiving toilet compost for 20 years, from both the

Solviva Compostoilet and the Brownfilter for the flush toilet system.

 

Another area of the

Solviva Greenfilter flower gardens, here showing a stand of 5-foot cosmos.

 

The Solviva Biocarbon

Filter System at the Black Dog Tavern:

A story about a great

success ...... and destructive interference by DEP.

 

The Solviva Wastewater

Filter system was installed at the Black Dog Tavern on the harbor in Vineyard

Haven, Massachusetts, in May 1998, for the purpose of reducing the nitrogen

from 5000 gallons of restaurant wastewater per day.

 

The wastewater from

the Tavern first went into the grease chamber where all or most of the grease

was supposed to be trapped, then it continued to the septic tank which retained

the solids. The effluent then continued into a chamber from where it was pumped

into the first part of the Solviva system, the Brownfilter.

This filter consisted

of two levels of perforated plastic barrels filled with Biocarbon filter

material, consisting of old leaves and wood chips, alive with earthworms and

other beneficial organisms. Then the partially treated effluent continued to

the perforated pipes laid in shallow trenches in the Greenfilter garden filled

with the same Biocarbon filter material plus soil.

 

Because this garden

was to receive about 12 " of effluent per day (imagine 12 " of rain per

day!) I had planned for it to be planted with the kinds of water-loving grasses

and shrubs that grow around ponds and wetlands. But the Black Dog managers also

wanted traditional cottage garden flowers. I was highly doubtful that this

could work, because such flowers prefer much drier conditions. I thought that surely,

if they received 12 " of water on a daily basis, their roots would rot and

the plants would die. But I was willing to give it a try.

Yes, the water-loving

plants did thrive, but, to my utter amazement, so did the cottage flowers.

There were zinnias and cosmos, snapdragons and tithonia, cleome, geum,

sunflowers and ageratum, and many other types.

They were not just

ordinary beautiful, they were exceptionally, extraordinairily healthy huge and

vibrant, even through the dogdays of that very hot summer.

 

 

The Solviva Biocarbon

filter system transformed the wastewater from the Black Dog Tavern ............

into glorious flowers, shrubs and grasses ..... gorgeous clean compost.... and

superb test results.

 

 

After frost killed the

annual flowers, the garden was seeded with rye, which, because of daily dosing

of wastewater effluent, grew thick and green through the whole long, cold

winter.

 

By early April the

iris, hollihock and rye were about 4 weeks ahead of other gardens. It was

stunning and heartbreaking when DEP ordered the Solviva Greenfilter garden to

be removed.

 

When hard frost

finally killed them, the annuals were removed and that part of the garden was

seeded with rye. The rye quickly grew thick and healthy, and it kept growing

through the long cold winter: the ground never froze because of the daily

dozing with warmish wastewater effluent.

 

The filtering process

through the Brownfilter and the Greenfilter took about 5 minutes, and the

nitrogen was reduced by 70-90%, the BOD by 92-98%, and the fecal coliform by

94-100% (as proven by monthly tests at certified labs). The system produced not

only the wonderful garden, but also, from the Brownfilter, magnificent compost

filled with healthy earthworms. This compost was also tested by certified labs,

which showed excellent nutrients and " below detectable limits " of 49

different toxic substances.

 

But, in spite of these

extraordinairily successful results, the DEP gave orders to the Black Dog in

April 1999 to remove the Solviva Biocarbon Filter and to replace it with a

standard leaching field. This, like all other standard DEP septic systems, of

course releases all the nitrogen into the groundwater and straight into the

adjacent harbor. The obvious question is: Why did DEP order the removal of the

Solviva system?

 

The search for the

answer to this question is murky indeed, but perhaps the most important key is

the fact that in the Fall of 1998 there was a major shift in the leadership of

the administration. Governor Weld resigned and Lieutenant Governor Celluci took

the helm. At that same time Trudy Coxe resigned from her post as Secretary of

Environmental Affairs. A few years earlier, on a visit to the Vineyard in 1995,

she had accepted an invitation to come see the Solviva Wastewater Filter

systems at my home. She was mightily impressed by their simplicity and lack of

odor, and the gorgeous Greenfilter flower gardens. When I mentioned the fact

that DEP (one of her departments) had still not issued the permit that I had

requested almost a year earlier, she expressed despair over the bureaucratic

obstacles within DEP that prevented satisfactory progress with new

de-nitrifying septic system designs, and frustration over her own lack of power

to change the policies. She offered to help, and subsequently did help boost my

permit applications through DEP. When Secretary Coxe left there was no

replacement for several months.

 

This left the DEP in

chaos, with no one willing/able/daring to make decisions. The program for

" Innovative/Alternative (I/A) septic system technologies " was passed

down from the Boston DEP to the regional DEP offices, and that's when the

trouble began. I could name names but I won't, at this point. Suffice it to say

that the attitude of the Southeast Region DEP office clearly indicates a

committment to maintaining current standard on-site septic system regulations,

which, because of the expense and pollution they cause, and the large land area

they require, automatically leads to their highest goal: Big Sewers Everywhere

(megabucks for the Consulting/Engineering/Sewage Installation industries, which

work very much hand-in-glove with the regulators nation-wide). And, their

actions clearly indicate a committment to

greatly discouraging

any I/A systems, especially those that were proving to be successful at

reducing nitrogen with less cost and less land than central sewering or

standard on-site septic systems.

 

The DEP officials

labeled as " violation " anything about the Solviva system at the Black

Dog Tavern that did not strictly adhere to written or unwritten rules, and

within a year they felt their list of violations was long enough to warrant

closure.

To be sure, there were

various problems that developed with the system.

The most serious was

the fact that a lot of grease, primarily olive oil, was getting into the

filters, thereby gumming them up and killing many of the earthworms. This

problem was unexpected because the grease was supposed to stay in the grease

trap, but because the restaurant used very hot water instead of bleach for

disinfecting the dishes, the grease did not have a chance to congeal and

therefore migrated into the filters.

We quickly made

numerous small but important adjustments to the system to rectify the grease

damage, such as increasing the drainholes in the Brownfilter containers, adding

fans and replacing the medium in the Brownfilter. However, according to DEP, no

adjustments could be made without getting a permit, which of course would take

months, and to wait was impossible because the adjustments had to be done when

they had to be done, because 5000 gallons of wastewater effluent kept coming

each day. So these adjustments were added to the list of violations.

Each of the problems

that arose could have been solved with relative ease, but DEP would not allow

these improvements and instead ordered the system to be removed.

 

But some great things

came out the Solviva system at the Black Dog:

superb test results,

and photographs of the magnificent Greenfilter garden, which will of course be

used in the upcoming effort to change the DEP regulations for on-site septic

systems.

 

There is still one

item that is left hanging on the line: the compost.

As mentioned above,

the first batch of Biocarbon mix in the Brownfilter was removed after the first

few months. A plan had been prepared to store this compost at one of the

permitted sewage facilities on the Vineyard, but when the time came, nobody

dared to accept it, for fear of DEP repurcussions. The compost, wonderfully

clean-smelling and filled with healthy earthworms, had be placed somewhere. So

I placed it on a remote fenced-in field on my farm, and covered it securely

with a tarp.

 

Then all hell broke

lose. The West Tisbury Board of Health was ordered by DEP to order me to remove

the compost, which they called " septage " , or face a $500 fine per

day. I showed the Board the suberb test reults, which proved that the toxic

contents in the compost was 1/100 - 1/1000 of what state regulations allow for

spreading as soil amendments. I invited them over to see for themselves. They

came, they saw, they sniffed, but even though it appeared to them that it did

not constitute a public health hazard, they said it was not up them, they had

orders from DEP. I put all the compost into 50 strong plastic barrels with tight-fitting

lids, and tied them all together securely, but the Board still had orders from

DEP to remove the " sludge " . However, the Board did lower the fine to

$50 per day - and - I got a $50 ticket every day for

the next 24 days.

 

During this whole time

I tried frantically to get permission from DEP, but the chaos was still going

on up there, with no one daring to actually assess the risk and admit that

there was none. I faxed and phoned and fed-exed to legislators,

representatives, the Governor, the press, lawyers, conservation groups, but

although they were all sympathetic no one was able to help. It was clear to

everyone that this case was " falling between the cracks " . This

compost/ " sludge " was being classified in the same category as sludge

from municipal sewage treatment facilities, which of course does contain toxic

substances.

There simply was, and

still is, no category on the books for a small quantity from one non-industrial

source, and no one was, or still is, willing to think " outside the

box " .

 

I finally gave up

trying to get permisson to keep it on my property, and instead sought permit to

keep it at the Edgartown Sewage Treatment Facility. The members of that

committee were highly sympathetic when they saw the compost and the test

results and voted to accept it for temporary storage until I got my DEP permit.

But, the DEP would not allow it to be stored at the Edgartown facility!

By this time I was

getting frantic, and extremely pessimistic, and angry with regulators who have

the gall to allow and indeed require the installation of septic systems that

release high levels of nitrogen, which has been proven to cause serious harm to

both public health and the environment, yet would not allow even enclosed

storage of compost that had already been tested to be perfectly safe!

Finally DEP issued

permit for Edgartown to temporarily store the 50 barrels of compost, and with a

local lawyer continuing to help me, the West Tisbury Board of Health rescinded

the $1200 accumulated fines, and fined me just $100 total.

 

I continued the work

to get DEP permit to store the compost on my property. I was told I must first

get a total TCLP test, and they sent me the application. I was shocked when I

saw what this entailed: a full test for 49 of the most toxic chemicals used in

our society, including PCB, Pentachlorophenol, 2,4.6-Tribromophenol, Lindane,

Endrin, Chlordane, Toxphene, Tetrachloetylene. And even more shocked when I

found out what it would cost: around $1500!

I asked: " How

could there possibly be any of these poisons in this compost that comes from a

small restaurant? "

The answer: " We

wouldn't know until it is tested. "

 

Pleading for help from

officials in other DEP departments, the response from several was: " This

is a preposterous demand! A TCLP test is clearly not needed because there is no

possibility that this compost would contain any of those substances. Let me see

if I can find a way through. "

And then a few days or

weeks later: " I am so sorry. I tried, but I can find no loop hole. "

 

So, I finally bit the

bullet and sent a sample of the compost to be TCLP tested. The results came

back: " below detectable limits " on all 49 substances. And this cost

me $1300.

Armed with this test

result I applied aggain for a permit to store th compost on my property. But I

was in for a rude awakening: The TCLP test was not enough. Now I must get a

permit for my land to be classified as storage facility for sludge, and this

would cost at least $1050 and would probably take at least a year to get. Words

cannot describe my level of disgust. This is it. Here is where I draw the line!

 

If you are still with

me to this point, I congratulate you for your perseverence, and I am grateful.

It is not easy for people to think about wastewater. Most people abhor the very

concept, and are unwilling to engage their brains sufficiently to " get

it " . Also, they have a hard time believing that governmental regulations

in this matter could really be as bad as they really are. How is it possible

that an agency that is named the " Department of Environmental

Protection " can be so guilty of creating and enforcing regulations that

are so destructive to the environment, not to mention to public health?

 

To sum up, this is

where it all stands at the present time, in February 2002: the compost is still

in Edgartown, and I have been waiting for 5 months for a response to my latest

plea to DEP to bring it to my land.

The system at the

Featherstone Meetinghouse for the Arts is still purifying their wastewater,

without any problems. My home systems are still transforming wastewater into

beautiful flowers and trees, without any odors, flies or other problems, ever.

There is zero " yuck-factor " .

It is a joy to flush

the toilet and thereby providing favorite food for thousands of happy earthworms

and millions of microcritters. It is so obvious that these systems work in

accordance with the Laws of Nature.

 

Now, with the help of

many others, we will continue the difficult but essential Good Work of changing

the DEP regulations.

You are welcome to

join this noble effort. Please do.

For more information

on my personal experiences with wastewater management, go to *Wastewater

Management *(chapter from the Solviva book), then go to the *Call to

Action*section to see the proposal for change.

 

Please pass on this

information to others. Thanks. Together we *can* do what needs to be done.

 

May every effort you

make to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle be rewarded with joy and success.

 

Wishing us all a good

life, for 7 x 7 generations,

 

Anna Edey

 

Anna Edey,

Solviva Solar-Dynamic

Bio-Benign Design,

RFD 1 Box 582, 18

Solviva Road, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568

Tel: (508) 693-3341,

Fax: (508) 693-2228, solviva

<solviva.

Website: www.solviva.com

 

Radiating UNCONDITIONAL LOVE & Truth to all.

May I always be found worthy.

Hawk

In Gratitude for All of Us!

Look at everything as

though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on

earth will be filled with joy & glory.