Kalamazoo staff outline $194 million plan to stop hauling biosolids to landfill, citing PFAS, odors and rising costs

Kalamazoo City officials on March 17 heard a staff presentation on a proposed $194 million project to change how the Kalamazoo Water Reclamation Plant handles biosolids, reduce truck traffic and destroy PFAS and microplastics from the wastewater stream.

Director of Public Services James Baker told the commission the plant treats about 26 million gallons of wastewater a day and that the city currently sends its biosolids to landfills. "Of the dollars that we collect every year from your water bill, 13 and a half million goes to take sludge to the landfill," Baker said, noting landfill disposal costs were about $4.5 million in February 2019 and have risen to roughly $13.5 million today.

The project plan published with the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund application proposes using a dryer combined with an oxygen‑rich, high‑temperature oxidation process (ERS) to produce an oxidized mineral ash that staff say is largely odorless and destroys PFAS and microplastics. Baker said the dryer + ERS option scored well in lifecycle cost, greenhouse gas footprint and odor potential in the city's evaluation of more than 30 technology responses to an earlier RFI.

Why it matters: staff project long‑term operational savings and neighborhood improvements if the city reduces the current daily truckloads of dewatered, wet solids. Baker said current hauling is roughly 200 tons per day of dewatered solids at about 23% solids — roughly "20 full size... trucks a day." After drying, the city would expect "less than 2 trucks a day," he said, and…