5th week of Master Naturalist Core Training
/The classroom session during the 5th week included 2 lectures (challenges…connectivity for wildlife, species of concern) and an activity with skulls. I forgot (again) to get a picture of the armadillo skull!
The field trip was to the Springfield landfill and one of the city’s wastewater treatment plants. The same field trip was done for my class in 2024. The time at the landfill was spent outside on a rock covered area – observing the road to the active part of the landfill (not where they were dumping this time…it was just over the hill from the road), the soil borrow areas, and a new cell in development. I took more notes this time – that the landfill has been operational since 1974 and it is almost the tallest place in the county…that dolomite and shale (not limestone) is underneath the landfill…that more sophisticated layered liners are under the cells since 1990 (before that there was a layer of clay)….plastics are 19.4% by weight; number 1 by volume….Yard waste, white appliances and lead acid batteries are banned from the landfill…the landfill should last for another 50 years before it is filled.
They have a new building that just opened this year with a ‘wetland’ (where the soil used to cover the landfill cells active (every night) and when a cell is filled. There is a classroom/meeting area in the building; I wondered if they would start using that area for presentations associated with tours in the future rather than having the entire hour with people standing outside for the lecture!
We caravaned down to the wastewater treatment plant. Adjacent to the plant is the Sac River Landfill (old, closed for years, capped); there is a plan to put a bike trail through it!
The tour was done in the same order as the water through the plant – the intake pipe (which also include the leachate from the landfill), the channel monster, whirlpool to collect solids, anaerobic tank (to support the process to take out nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous), aeration, flocculation, clarifiers (water is clear…but still loaded with bacteria), UV light (to kill bacteria…also cyclospora). And the water goes to the Sac River…clearer than the river water which has some sediment!
The solid part left from the process is collected at the plant and taken by truck to the other (larger) Springfield wastewater treatment plant which has a digester…and produces a Class B biosolid that can be used on fields that do not produce food eaten directly by humans.
There is a plan to add a foam fractionation unit to reduce forever chemicals – that is something new since I toured in 2024.
The day was cool and sunny….we generally agreed that, had it been hot, the smells would have been worse and attendance would have been poor!
