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Waste Management details new bio‑solids drying plant, PFAS treatment pilot
Summary
Waste Management told the Norwalk select board it is commissioning a new bio‑solids drying facility that will accept up to 200 wet tons per day and is piloting a PFAS (referred to in the meeting as 'PAS') treatment system; start of operations is expected this summer and corporate pilots are testing destruction technologies for concentrated reject streams.
Jeff McGowan, a Waste Management representative, told the select board the company is developing a bio‑solids processing facility at the town site that he called “the first of its kind in the state” and among the largest in the United States. He said the facility is designed to take about 200 wet tons of sludge a day and reduce it to roughly 50 dry tons destined for landfill disposal.
Logan McGowan, identified in the meeting as the manager of the bio‑solids processing facility, described the drying equipment: three stainless‑steel drying “trains” about 115 feet long and roughly 12 feet wide that push sludge on a plastic mesh belt while air passes through to dry the material. He said commissioning of pumping, crane and hopper systems is under way, dryer commissioning will continue in May–June and the team expects to begin operations in June or July, with a likely steady ramp after the July 4 holiday.
The presenters addressed concerns about PFAS (discussed in the meeting transcript as “PAS”) and explained the company’s treatment approach. According to Waste Management, a foam‑fractionation process draws highly concentrated PFAS into a reject stream; that concentrated liquid is currently being held in a storage tank and periodically returned to the landfill process until corporate pilots for destruction technologies are deployed. Jeff McGowan characterized the PAS treatment project as an approximately $8 million installation that began late in 2024 and is nearly complete, while the broader bio‑solids processing build is a larger capital investment.
Company staff said the dryer will let them accept drier sludge streams and modestly increase throughput depending on incoming solids content. They emphasized that for many years in Maine some biosolids were land‑applied to farmland but that practice was curtailed after state action citing contamination concerns. Staff also described a 6.3‑acre landfill cell scheduled for construction this year and said current permitted site life extends through about 2044, with phased capping constrained by Maine’s short construction season.
Board members asked technical questions about where the concentrated PFAS would go and whether it leaves site. Waste Management staff said the concentrated fraction does not leave the facility immediately; it is stored for treatment or eventual high‑temperature destruction at pilot sites being evaluated. The company offered to host a site tour for board members once commissioning is complete.
The board did not take a vote on the presentation; it accepted the update and moved on to other agenda items.
