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What goes down, must come up
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this video clip (Real Media) Length: (4:57)
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(4:57)
<<Sounds of machines at work>>
Narrator Says:
It’s a case of what goes down, must come up.
King
County crews are charged with the task of cleaning up just about
anything that lands on county roads. But it’s not as simple as just
picking it up and throwing it out, at least not anymore.
<<Sounds of machines at SWAP plant>>
King County Senior Ecologist Doug Navetski
Says:
We collect about, somewhere in the neighborhood of
about 15,000 cubic yards a year of soil, we want to do something with in
a responsible manner and the way we do it is we run it through what's
called our SWAP program.
Narrator Says:
SWAP In this case refers to the county road services division’s Street
Waste Alternative Program, which has been in full operation since 2003,
and in that time has turned 97 percent of the material it removes from
county roads into usable material for mine reclamations.
In order to
turn the waste into usable soil for reclamation projects, all litter and
contaminants must be removed. For this task, the county uses some big
machinery along with some microscopic allies. First the litter needs to
come out. The swap program picks up about 22,000 pounds a year from
county roads.
King County Senior Ecologist Doug Navetski
Says:
So this is what comes out the other end of the trommel, anything that's
not soil is basically solid waste or litter, so about three to five
percent of the material we collect off the right of way and out of catch
basins is the garbage you see here, and it's just stuff that's been
thrown out of people's cars and things like that.
Narrator Says:
Once the litter has all been removed, the job is handed over to a
smaller set of workers. Bacteria and microorganisms that eat the gas and
oil mixed in with material from roads, removing the contamination from
the soil.
King County Senior Ecologist Doug Navetski
Says:
The soil is then moved into these bays where it's stockpiled and allowed
to sit between three to six months, and there are bugs that naturally
occur that like to eat the oil and gas and it naturally breaks down, and
so we have a testing program where we sample the soils to see if they've
passed out internal protocols and we move it out into the berms.
Narrator Says:
Once the piles of soil have been tested enough to assure they’re safe
enough for the environment, they’re moved out to this area, large piles
of dirt called berms.
King County Senior Ecologist Doug Navetski
Says:
The vegetation just loves this it has, about a four to eight percent
organic content which is just about what top soil has and as you can see
the vegetation grows quite thoroughly, and we just keep piling it down
the line and you'll see as you look that there's various stages of
growth on this, over time what we'll do as the mining operations are
done and we fill it, this stuff will be bulldozed over and used as
topsoil.
Narrator Says:
Before the swap program was launched the county spent between $550,000
and $730,000 a year to dispose of waste solids from its roads. Swap has
cut that number by about half, it now costs between $259,000 and
$375,000, a savings of up to a half million dollars a year. Along with
swap, the county also has a CROW program, CROW stands for Consolidated
Reduction Of Waste.
King County Senior Ecologist Doug Navetski
Says:
Any soils that are generated by things such as culvert replacements, or
shoulder pulls or landslides or stuff like that, are brought in and
places in areas that have been mined out, areas that have been mined out
for sand and gravel, we generate about 40,000 cubic yards a year of that
material, and it's also sampled and tested for any potential
contaminants that are in it.
And so far we really haven't found any that
are of concern, so once the material is brought in, and properly
compacted what we'll do is take the material from the SWAP program and
lay it over as topsoil, and we've reclaimed the mining areas.
Narrator Says:
The crow program is a little older having been around since 1991, it not
only saves the county the money it would spend disposing of the
material, but saves the space in local landfills. It’s also a way of
finding at least a small silver lining to dangerous winter storms that
can wreak havoc on the Northwest.
King County Senior Ecologist Doug Navetski
Says:
You're probably wondering what happened to all the wood from the storms
that happened this winter, well you're looking at it, we reduce it all
down to woodchips, and we reuse the woodchips, in our maintenance
operations, so all those trees you saw fall down, are now in that pile,
that's the other part of the crow program, 'what do you do with all the
material that's generated in storm events', during landslides and things
like that, also what do you do with things that are illegally dumped in
the right of way, things like scrap metal, or debris tires, that's all
put through the recycling program here.
Narrator Says:
Even with the 97 percent efficiency of the crow and swap programs .. The
county is still working toward a goal of zero waste by the year 2030. A
goal to reach the point where even piles of trash can be converted into
useful material.
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