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NZ Land Treatment Col lect ive
NEWSLETTER
Dedicated to improving and communicating technology for the land treatment of waste products
Inside this issue:
Update from NZLTC Chair
Update from Technical Manager
1
2018 NZLTC Conference
2
2018 NZLTC Conference—Panel
Discussion
3
Spotlight on research 4
International land treatment
news
5
NZLTC Photo Competition
NZLTC Online
6
Greetings to all,
On behalf of the NZLTC Technical Committee Happy New Year to you all.
The organisation of the 2018 conference is operating under full steam
and we have a fantastic group of keynote speakers confirmed for the 7th
and 8th of March in Rotorua. The presentations begins with a focus on
climate change. Professor Iain White of University of Waikato will draw
upon his participation in the National Science Challenges to tell us what
climate change is and what it could mean for NZ. This is followed by a
presentation from Rob Bell of NIWA on how climate change is expected to
impact on land use in New Zealand.
The conference begins the following day with a session on a subject dear to the heart of many of
the LTC members, this being biosolids. Our invited International Speaker, Dr Sally Brown of
Washington State University, will update us on the latest developments in the recycling of biosolids
in the US.
Together with our other presenters we have a stimulating couple of days ahead of us and I look
forward to seeing you at the conference in Rotorua.
Grant
Update from NZLTC Chair — Grant Northcott
I ssu e 56
N ewsl ett er Feb 20 18
https://nzltc.wordpress.com
1
Update from the Technical Manager — Louise Weaver
Greetings to all,
This year’s NZLTC conference in Rotorua is shaping up to be an exciting
event. There are several important messages to note:
update your NZLTC membership to take advantage of the members
only conference registration rates
Early bird registration closes on the 16th Feb
If you have been accepted as an oral presenter please submit your
full paper by the 14th Feb to [email protected]
If you have any conference related questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with us. We
look forward to seeing you all in Rotorua in early March.
Louise
Looking back on previous years there have been some great
NZLTC conferences and this year will be no exception.
Our venue is the Rotorua Energy Event Centre and this year’s
conference theme is:
“Benefits and risks of land treatment”
We are fortunate enough to have national and international
keynote speakers including:
Professor Iain White (University of Waikato) - What
is climate change?
Dr Rob Bell (NIWA) Impact of Climate Change on
land use
Research Associate Professor Sally Brown
(University of Washington) International speaker,
Biosolid management
The conference will also include a expert panel discussion on
the key challenges facing the waste sector in the next 10—20
years.
2018 NZLTC Conference—Rotoura, 7-9th March
2
AVAILABLE SPONSORSHIPS
GOLD Sponsor $4,500
SILVER Sponsor $2,500
BRONZE Sponsor $1,000
Conference dinner $2,000
Lunch break $1000 each (x2 available)
Tea break $750 each (x2 available)
Trade exhibition $500 each
MEMBERSHIPS TO NZLTC ARE NOW DUE
AND NEED TO BE PAID PRIOR TO THE
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION TO BENEFIT
FROM MEMBER PRICING.
Christchurch 2017 Wanaka 2015 Hamilton 2014 Gisborne 2016
SOCIAL EVENT
Opportunities to network and socialise will be
available with a social event on Wednesday 7th
March at the LONE STAR. The event will include a
pub quiz (Quiz Master: Rob Potts) and nibbles
throughout the evening.
CONFERENCE DINNER
The conference dinner will be held at the
Novotel Rotorua Lakeside Hotel on
Thursday 8th March with an international
dinner speaker Dr Chuck Henry ‘World
toilets: realities and opportunities’
FIELDTRIP
A field trip to relevant land treatment locations around Rotorua
will be held on Friday 9th March. Some of the fieldtrip sites
include:
Rotorua OSET testing facility
Hauraki catchment to see P removal project
Ohau diversion wall
Tikitapu / Blue Lake, introduction to PC 10 land
management rules to control nutrient discharges to land
Tarawera landing, sewage reticulation and the impact of
7 contributing lakes and their land use
Important dates
Registrations opened 18th Jan 2018
Full papers due 14th Feb 2018
Early bird registration due 16th Feb 2018
Conference presentations 7-8th Mar 2018
Conference fieldtrip 9th Mar 2018
“Future land treatment challenges for New Zealand”
The world is changing around us and how we manage wastewater is also evolving. Many factors,
including climate change, are contributing to the need to consider alternatives or enhanced practices
for managing our wastes.
What do we need to know as a sector? How can we be prepared to best mitigate potential
consequences of climate change, population growth, urban sprawl, changing market requirements?
During the conference we will be running a workshop to consider the:
Potential impacts of climate change on land use?
Consequence of changing land use, including greater urban development?
How is land availability for waste management being impacted by changing land use?
How is perception and market access influencing how we apply waste to land?
As we get busy, can we trust people to do their own thing or do we simply charge people to have
someone independently manage our wastes?
What questions do we not have answers to that research and good science could address?
Panel Discussion Thursday 8th March, 1:00—2:15pm
2018 NZLTC Conference—Workshop
3
Spotlight on Research
4
Mānuka and kānuka for the land-treatment of municipal wastewater
Recently, the CIBR team at LEI, ESR, University of Canterbury, and Northcott Research Associates, have obtained funds from
Horowhenua District Council (HDC) and the Ministry for Environment Freshwater Improvement Fund to carry out an exciting real scale
project for applying Treated Municipal Wastewater (TMW) in a mānuka and kānuka dominated ecosystem, and to reduce the impacts
on the previous land-application system on the Waiwiri Stream.
Levin
Waiwir i S tream
5 km
Water quality in the Waiwiri catchment is mainly impacted by
pastoral land use, the quality of water released from Lake
Papatongia, and land discharge of TMW from “The Pot”. “The Pot”
is the local name of a 7 ha pond where wastewater from the Levin
Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) is stored prior to being spray
irrigated onto 40 ha of exotic pines. Nutrients from the Pot and the
land-application of the TMW into pine plantations, enter the Waiwiri
stream via drains and subsurface flows. This, along with a nutrient
load from elsewhere in the catchment, is contributing nutrients to
the Waiwiri Steam and exacerbating the loss of biodiversity on the
Horowhenua coast near the stream outflow.
The resource consent for the irrigation scheme at the Pot requires
renewal and this offers the opportunity to revise the design of the
original irrigation scheme, with input from key stakeholders
including Iwi, DOC, Regional and District Council. The revised design
has the scope to incorporate the most up to date irrigation
technology, including utilising recent research discoveries on the
abilities of mānuka/kānuka native ecosystems to provide enhanced
treatment of wastewater contaminants.
Figure 2: Baseline monitoring by the ESR Team
Figure 1: Waiwiri Stream location.
Research by ESR/Lincoln University has demonstrated that the root
systems of mānuka/kānuka have unique properties that do more
than just filter pollutants; they actively inhibit nitrification and
enhance the die-off of pathogenic bacteria.
In this project, we will replace 10 ha of pine forest with native
ecosystems comprising 40-60% mānuka and kānuka.
This project poses a great opportunity to investigate the benefits
that can be derived from the first full scale application of TMW on
NZ native vegetation in the country. The applied research
component of this project is twofold, firstly we will provide validation
of the benefits of mānuka/kānuka-dominated ecosystems to
enhance the land treatment of land applied wastewater in an
operational environment. Secondly, we will collate information on
the accumulation, fate and effects of emerging organic
contaminants in wastewater applied to land. This is a knowledge
gap for both councils and community and HDC have been asked to
provide key stakeholders with information on the impacts of EOC’s
in the treated and irrigated wastewater within the local
environment.
Globally, there is limited information on the effects of indigenous
vegetation on nutrient and emerging organic contaminant removal
from treated wastewater and no information on using plants to
attenuate pathogens in biowastes. New knowledge obtained from
this project on the effects of native plant systems to mitigate
emerging organic contaminants and pathogens in treated human
wastewater will make a significant contribution to national and
international research in the field of land treatment of biowaste.
For more information please contact:
Maria Gutierrez-Gines
International Land Treatment News
5
Biosolids: Growing opportunity while tackling climate change
Hello LTC colleagues!
While you are soaking up your summer
sunshine with your droughts and heat waves,
we are drowning in the depths of a wet winter in
Vancouver. Every year we see some fingerprint
of what we suspect is climate change – induced
weather patterns. Whether it is drought,
or incredibly powerful storms, more snow
than usual, or a fierce wildfire season, the
evidence grows in support of the
hypothesis that we are having a profound influence on our planet’s
climate.
With New Zealand having recently provided its seventh
communication in regards to progress towards climate change
commitments, and Canada’s government having instituted an
escalating carbon value (to be either taxed or used in cap and
trade), perhaps this is a good time to share with you one of the
projects that I am most excited about since we started toying with
the concept of how we might be able to use residuals to mitigate
climate change. A recent paper co-authored by another LTC alumni,
Nanthi Bolan, supports this important premise – biosolids, and
likely other organic residuals used in land treatment, can alter soil
carbon.
The project I share with you today is found on the outskirts of
Calgary Alberta. It started as a demonstration project and has since
developed into one of Calgary’s three main mechanisms for
managing biosolids. The premise at the outset was simple: use
biosolids to fertilize a rapidly growing short rotation woody crop
(biomass willow) in order to produce a feedstock for a newly
constructed municipal greenwaste, organics and biosolids
composting facility.
This is the kind of project that I love, because it creates a feedback
loop. Biosolids applied to the willow plantation forms one system of
beneficial use, however the feedstock that is grown from that soil
enrichment directly improves the city’s ability to manage more
biosolids through its composting facility by providing much needed
woody biomass for composting. For those of you not familiar with
Calgary, there isn’t a lot of forestry or woodlands in the surrounding
area, so the feedstock is of considerable value.
Figure 1: An aerial view of approximately 40 ha of the 350 ha willow plantation.
The project specifically identified and chose marginal
agricultural lands with poor productivity. The
combination of willow (which is a coppice species,
growing back from its root stool when cut back) and
biosolids enables this system to act as a productive
fallow plantation, enriching and resting marginal
agricultural soils, restoring productivity over the lifetime
of the willows. Willows are harvested every three years,
and biosolids amendments are applied after each
harvest. By the end of the 30 year lifespan of the
willows, the soil will be rich in nutrients and organic
matter.
The combination of willow rooting, leaf litter fall,
biosolids application, and fine root turnover results in a
lot of stable carbon inputs to the soil. Current
measured estimates after four years of willow growth
suggest that we are seeing up to 14 tonnes of CO2
equivalent carbon stored per hectare per year. That
carbon has a potential value of CAD $410 (NZD $448)
per ha per year. The willow plantation in Calgary is
approximately 350 ha in size, making it the largest
contiguous willow plantation in North America.
The willow plantation has introduced a woodland
ecosystem to the prairies. This has spawned new
habitat for deer, elk, songbirds, and rodents, which
have resulted in a stable habitat for predators,
including endangered species of owls and raptors.
The availability of consistent, high quality biomass
feedstock has opened up new avenues for
biotechnology research beyond compost feedstock. We
are currently investigating the potential to generate
everything from renewable natural gas (RNG) which can
be directly injected in to the gas network, to liquid
biofuels, to algae based organic and renewable
fertilizers from this amazing feedstock.
With all these attributes, the biosolids to biomass
project may, eventually, realize the ultimate
achievement in biosolids management – cost recovery.
That is still a long ways off, but we hope that the willows
can go the distance.
We are currently exploring other exciting avenues for the
organics/willows concept. I hope to be able to share the next
chapter with you soon. Have a great conference!
John Lavery
But this project is special. It is an onion that we can peel back. The
immediate utility of the feedstock was certainly a great start,
however, there are many more layers to this particular beneficial use:
Figure 2: Willow harvest uses a modified forage harvester and can achieve
several hectares per hour.
John Lavery (SYLVIS Canada:
j lavery @sy lv is .com)
You can follow NZLTC online via the following platforms: website, Twitter, LinkedIn
and Facebook. Updates will be posted regularly with links to our newsletter, relevant
land treatment research and news and conference updates.
NZ LTC Online
https://nzltc.wordpress.com/
6
Keep sending us photos of you and your favourite land treatment
application. The winner will be announced at the NZLTC 2018 Conference.
Send to : nz l [email protected] i .nz
NZLTC Photo Competition
NZLTC Technical Manager
Louise Weaver
NZLTC Finance and Administration Management
Robyn Chapple
NZLTC Communications
Bronwyn Humphries
NZLTC Contacts
NZLTC Online
Next Newsletter…
The NZLTC Technical Committee will be
giving a progress update on the NZLTC
Strategy Objectives in the coming
newsletters:
Objective 1: Representation and advocacy
Objective 2: Member engagement and growth
Objective 3: Enhancing stakeholder relationships
Objective 4: Professional Development and Train-
ing
Objective 5: Support development of research for
sustainable waste