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September 2024 - MABA Biosolids Spotlight
Provided to MABA members by Bill Toffey, Effluential Synergies, LLC
SPOTLIGHT on BLOOM
DC Water’s biosolids product, Bloom, “sparks joy!” While influencer Marie Kondo’s “spark joy” tips no longer focus on tidiness, she now advises on the “little activities that bring peace and joy on a deeper level.” Any biosolids manager who reviews the case studies and testimonials of Bloom users, easily found on Blue Drop websites and social media, cannot help but enter a zone of peace and joy. The District’s plan for a first-in-the-U.S. technology embraced some 15 years ago envisioned “biosolids product(s) that will have maximum potential use in the marketplace” (WEFTEC 2010, “Development Criteria in the Age of Sustainability – DC Water’s New Paradigm for Biosolids and Energy Management”). That dream has been actualized, and that “sparks joy.”
The birth of Bloom as a soil product followed closely upon completion at DC Water’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant of the biosolids treatment process that combined the Cambi Thermal Hydrolysis Process with new mesophilic anaerobic digesters and new belt filter presses. On January 17, 2017, the DC Water Blog offered this announcement: “One Drop Begets Another: We launched [Blue Drop] 54 days ago with the goal of marketing products and services DC Water has already developed – to generate revenue and improve the state of the water sector.” This brought the “new paradigm for biosolids” to reality.
Seven years of market development have brought Bloom to a peak place among biosolids products. But for the venerable Milorganite, nearing its 100th anniversary (1926 to 2026), Bloom, with its tagline “Good Soil, Better Earth,” has developed an unexcelled breadth of its product reach compared to exceptional quality biosolids worldwide. Its markets range from city sites to rural lands, from community gardens to large farms, from homeowners to highly esteemed professionals. Bloom is available in its “fresh” form (Fresh Bloom) and in two blends, the Woody Blend and the Sandy Blend. Specification sheets are available for all three forms, describing physical and chemical characteristics, and use information sheets are available for each. Market segments have coalesced into landscaper and resellers, contractors, farmers, and homeowners. For all markets, Blue Drop prepares a photographic gallery and testimonials of successful product uses, many backed up by 18 webinars viewable on YouTube.
As is true for most successful ventures, committed, forward-thinking champions comprise the Bloom production and marketing enterprise. At the head of the enterprise is Chris Peot, who for 25 years has been one of the nation’s foremost advocates for biosolids recycling and high-quality product formulation. He arrived at the DC Water and Sewer Authority when the agency was knee-deep in substandard, odor-prone residuals, determined to change its off-kilter course and poor reputation. He was a key advocate for the treatment train announced in 2010 to create a product with the promise that was to become Bloom. He helped conceive the marketing program for the Bloom biosolids product that would launch Blue Drop. Chris now serves the dual role of Interim President of Blue Drop and the Director of Recovery and Wastewater Treatment for the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water).
Chris Peot, Director of Resource Recovery, giving a tour of Cambi Thermal Hydrolysis Process units at DC Water’s Blue Plains AWTP
Chris Peot’s pledge was to create the highest value biosolids product that would yield the District and its ratepayers the highest returns. To accomplish this, he would have DC Water create versatile products and markets. DC Water would turn to soil and plant experts, notably Ron Alexander, to assist customers on technical issues, and the agency would support related practical and university end use research, as with Drs. Greg Evanylo and Gary Felton. Peot needed a vehicle, Blue Drop, to assist with marketing, engaging a staff of problem-solvers and passionate advocates for the product. Today in 2024, Bloom is supported by the brilliance of April Thompson, Holly Kiser and Victoria Alleyne.
Marketing Bloom has become a unique success with April Thompson, who leads the Bloom marketing and sales efforts. April holds an MBA and an MA in International Development from American University and a BA from the University of Virginia, which led her to work in more than a dozen countries. She has worked in non-governmental organizations on important causes, such as food security and child labor. She is also a freelance journalist, particularly on sustainable lifestyle topics, and is passionate about urban agriculture and conservation, having completed the master gardener and naturalist programs. April now brings these commitments to important issues and these talents in marketing, communication and project management to her position as Senior Director for Bloom. And she does so in the context of a strong effort at DC Water to make a great product. "The team at DC Water deserves a ton of credit," April is quick to say, "as they actually blend our beautiful product in house, they help deliver to our customers and they work literally day and night to get trucks loaded."
April Thompson, Senior Director, bragging about the results of Bloom
April holds up golf courses as a growing type of customer for Bloom, overseen by Bloom Sales Manager Victoria Alleyne. Victoria is the Bloom Sales Manager working with landscapers, contractors, land resellers. While born in the US, Victoria was raised in Barbados, the origin of her love of plants. She earned a BS in Environmental Sciences and her MBA from the University of Maryland Global Campus. Prior to Bloom, Victoria spent more than four years at Maryland Environmental Services, where she was part of MES organics diversion, composting, and recycling, including the marketing and distribution of Leafgro.
Golf courses are by no measure easy customers for Victoria, as Bloom is not a familiar soil amendment, and much is at stake in successful product performance. The expectations by golf course superintendents for their soil products is for even, deep green landscape, for spotless, disease-free turf, and for the precise balance of good drainage yet adequate moisture holding characteristics. Over the past several years, Bloom has managed to earn the trust and respect of expert consultants in the golf industry, who help tailor the Bloom product to the exacting, dependable performance needed by courses.
April and Victoria have come to appreciate the expert voice of Jeff Michel, Vice President of M&M Consulting, who in a recent training webinar spoke alongside Allen Turner, Superintendent of Four Streams Golf Course on specific aspects of Bloom that are highly valued. These include sand blends that have a controlled release of nutrients at a pace matching turf needs, not over-fertilizing (which weakens the grass) not resulting in leaching below the roots (which is a waste of money). The result is turf that is deeply rooted, a key to drought resistance and plant health.
Before and after pictures of green restoration using the Sandy Blend Bloom product at the Four Streams Golf Course
In the “Bloom fan club” also is Ben Ellis, superintendent of the golf course at Andrews Air Force Base. Ellis speaks to how Bloom builds soil cation exchange capacity with its organic matter, how it sequesters carbon for sustainability and how it provides a kick of extra iron and nitrogen for super green color. But it was the cost-effective availability of the Bloom Sand Blend in high volumes that was the lifesaver at a project he managed at Fort Belvoir, when he restored ten acres entirely devoid of topsoil and organic matter. At his post at Andrews, his eye is now on a large delivery of Bloom for development of a driving range.
Victoria is also responsible for large contractor jobs. She points to the South Capitol Bridge, the largest Bloom project to date, as a capstone event. Also known as the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge project, plans included highly visible landscapes, challenging grades and paths for public accessibility for bikers and walkers. This mandated high quality turf and plant establishment for what was to become a world-class landscape, hence the need for Bloom as a dependable foundation for success. The soil specification for the DC Department of Transportation called for a significant increase in organic matter to bring the existing topsoil to a quality suitable for sustainable plant growth. Landscape architects and soil scientists came together to find an optimal blend that included Bloom for its capability to provide a rich quantity of slow-release nutrients. The Bloom-amended soil could provide drought resistance through good water holding capacity, disease tolerance from its balance of plant nutrients, and good soil structure for water drainage and storm management control.
Fresh Bloom applied for in situ incorporation with existing soil fill at South Capitol Bridge project
Capitol Bridge South with high value landscape plantings completed
Holly Kiser, Blue Drop’s Agricultural Liaison, calls herself a “farm kid.” She was raised on a dairy farm, and today lives with her farmer husband and two children on Radley Bend, a multi-generational farm producing hay, dairy, and cattle, and of course pigs her kids tend as 4H projects. She has personally witnessed biosolids benefits to crop production and soil health, so is able to compellingly represent Bloom as an affordable and natural fertilizer.
Blue Drop has posted a case study of an agricultural application of Bloom at the Lorn Carlee farm. Carlee’s 600-acre farm in Washington and Frederick Counties in Maryland is on a path to improved soil health, greater crop yields and sustainability with the use of organic matter sources. Carlee started using chicken litter and then moved to Bloom, committing to transforming his cultural practices over a five-year period. He is using 20 tons per acre of Bloom on sorghum and 10 tons per acre on soybeans, resulting in larger sorghum heads and greener leaves and soybeans that are taller and more productive. Without Bloom, Carlee had been barely achieving 100 bushels of sorghum per acre, but with Bloom Carleereaches a yield of 135 bushels per acre. Carlee has discovered that Bloom makes crops more resilient to drought, and he expects that future soil tests will show improvement in his soil’s improved cation exchange capacity. With improved soil health, Carlee expects to move his target of corn production from 200 bushels per acre to 250 bushels. Through Bloom, Holly has introduced to Lorn Carlee Fresh Bloom as a source of organic matter and natural nutrients that puts into real action sustainable farming.
Bloom applied to farm fields results in notable improvements in crop vitality
The highly skilled and dedicated Blue Drop sales team has a key foundation of support back at DC Water – James Fotouhi, the Resource Recovery Program Manager. James has been with DC Water for nearly 7 years, providing Blue Drop’s sales team with the regulatory, science and logistical foundation necessary for this unusually wide-ranging and necessarily transparent sales program. James has a civil engineering degree from the University of British Columbia, which engaged his interests in energy and water efficiencies and that propelled him in his early career with Engineers without Borders and with water technology consultants BlueTech Research. At DC Water, James has worked on energy efficiencies, carbon management and greenhouse gas emissions, and he has provided avenues for program efficiencies to reduce costs in the Bloom marketing. His technology and science skills have made him a key staffer, supported by able staffers such as Antoine Wroton, in addressing current issues with microcontaminants.
James underscores the importance of Bloom product quality in the entire recycling enterprise. James says “one of the keys to Bloom’s success is consistent product quality. When operated correctly, THP can produce a very homogenized, low odor material, and DC Water does a great job keeping it functional. Operations has discovered a lot of flexibility in the system, finding that even with entire digesters or CAMBI trains down for months at a time, the Class A VSR [volatile solids reduction] and time/temperature requirements [for further pathogen reduction] can still be easily met. In 10 years since commissioning, the biosolids treatment process has always met and exceeded our permit requirements.”
Keeping the biosolids treatment process working is a committed team of wastewater treatment professionals at DC Water. James called out Eric Barnett, in Process Engineering, and Dennis Morris, Program Manager Department of Maintenance Services, as heading the teams that keep the process moving dependably 24-7. Dennis emphasized: “[Cambi} is not a set-and-forget process. We have good people who really care about their jobs, and they need to be constantly aware. Thermal hydrolysis is a good process, but we have needed continuous improvements for changes to optimize it.” Dennis is always in search of young people to train as the next generation to keep the Bloom product excellent.
DC Water and Blue Drop together are the global leaders in the production, distribution and sales of exceptional quality biosolids for use in urban and nearby agricultural landscapes. The progress across the 15 years from concept to full implementation has been a steady perseverance and commitment to principles of sustainability, circular economy and resource use efficiency. This endeavor is a shining example for all of us in the biosolids profession, an example that can spark joy.
For more information, contact Mary Baker at [email protected] or 845-901-7905. |
