Bioaugmentation

Putting Nature's Helpers to Work

Copyright © by John Lancaster
Ft. Smith, AR USA

"When we talk to plants about superbugs or selectively adapted organisms," explained Ted Rourke, "we have to help them understand that what we're basically talking about is adding a skilled work force to their treatment process."

Rourke is director of industrial and municipal sales at St. Louis, Missouri, based BioLogix Systems Corporation. BioLogix cultures bacteria for uses ranging from home cleaning products to waste water and chemical treatment, including cultures that literally eat hazardous or potentially hazardous wastes. These base cultures are provided to other companies, which develop product lines from them.

Although Rourke was discussing industrial and municipal applications, his observation applies equally well to home and small business uses, including septic system augumentation, drain line maintenance, and grease trap maintenance. Because these bacteria are naturally occurring organisms, they pose no threat to the environment. Quite to the contrary, the environment benefits because the bacteria are being used to digest waste materials, breaking them down to CO2, water, and harmless mineral salts.

Additionally, most manufacturers use types of bacteria that are non-pathogenic, meaning they do not cause diseases in humans.

One note of warning, however, is in order. Some bacterial products use a bacteria called psuedomonas aeurignosa, which is a secondary potential pathogen. That means that it has the capability to mimic certain traits of pathogens and to take on some of their characteristics. BioLogix's Rourke summed up the problem with this bacterium neatly.

"It's the type of thing, basically," he advised, "that you don't want to come in contact with if you have any open wounds or cuts on your hands. It produces a toxin and is being more closely looked at by different regulatory bodies."

Noting that his company knew it was an organism they did not want in their mix, Ted emphasized that the USDA now bans it from use in food processing establishments that come under their authority. The product is considered to be suitable for use in petro-chemical processing plants and other similar applications.

"But we've always been of the opinion," Rourke continued, "that you have plant personnel who are going to be adding these organisms to the treatment process in the plant, and we want the organisms that are most effective and also the safest."

The answer is to verify with your supplier that his mix does not contain aeurignosa or other pathogens (disease-producing bacteria). It would, in fact, be wise to verify with the supplier that his product is suitable for any application that might enter the food chain.

Fortunately, nature provides an abundant supply of beneficial bacteria that offer no harm to humans or to their plants and animals. These provide an excellent way to enlarge the pumper's line of offerings, both in service and in direct product sales.

The key to boosting sales and improving service with biological products, however, is having a good working knowledge about them.

Bio-Knowledge

Nature naturally degrades anything organic. Whether it's a dead animal in the wild or an apple core carelessly tossed aside by a child, any organic material not treated by a preservative will degrade to harmless elements through one or more natural processes.

In the field of bioaugmentation - meaning simply that we help or reinforce (augment) natural biological processes - companies search out bacteria or other organisms that are capable of breaking down the various materials that need handling.

These organisms are cultured and sometimes even encouraged to specialize in digesting a particular product. From this base culture, the company develops products designed to handle that type of material.

Most septic system supplements consist of a blend of several kinds of bacteria, including both those that use oxygen (aerobic) and those which operate well in environments without oxygen (anaerobic). Some bacteria used are "facultative", which means they can adapt to either aerobic or anaerobic environments. This allows them to work effectively under wider ranges of conditions.

The starting point to an understanding of bioaugmentation is knowing that it is a natural process. It simply concentrates organisms that grow naturally in the environment to improve and enhance reduction of human or industrial wastes to non-polluting products. No genetically altered bacteria are used.

Ken Roten, president of Commonwealth Chemical, Inc. In Louisville, Kentucky, which supplies bio-additives to professional sewer pumpers, emphasized this point.

"One of the key things we try to accomplish," he said, "is to help nature do the job. Mother Nature does her own degradation, but the sewer systems change. So what we are doing is helping the natural process or helping the system do a better job."

As in any new field, a number of myths arise. One of these is that bacterial additives will completely replace pumping and other septic system maintenance procedures. Roten stressed that this is not true.

"We don't sell miracles," he chuckled. "We don't sell gimmick products with the promise that you'll never have a problem. If you do things that aren't compatible with the system that you have, you're going to have a problem regardless of what bacteria you use."

"The product breaks down a long chain of compounds," added Daryl Donaldson, a consultant who works with Commonwealth from time to time. "It breaks down glycerides, fats, fatty acids, cellulose content, food particles, that sort of thing. It also breaks down lignin (the tough material that gives wood its strength), lactose, most of the food starches, and even ground meals, so long as they haven't been bleached."

Donaldson went on to point out that bleached meals, such as flour, take a long time to break down because the bleach does not break down easily. Bleach is added to give the product a longer shelf life.

Products such as chlorine and a number of others, including chemical drain cleaners, can reduce naturally occurring bacterial colonies in sewer lines and septic systems. This allows sludge to build up, cake, and harden inside the lines and may result eventually in failure of the system.

It should be noted that one school of thought holds that no additives are necessary. They point out that the bacteria supply is renewed each time the commode is flushed. They also stress that the bleaches used are normally quite dilute, killing off some of the bacteria, but not necessarily destroying them all. The homeowner, however, often wants to put in something to maintain the system and, if the pumper does not provide an additive, the homeowner will then use grandma's remedy (yeast) or whatever other product he can find; or worse, use a product that falsely claims to eliminate pumping.

Bio-additives have other advantages, according to Mark McKee, manager at Enviro Care Corporation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

"In home use," Mark told us, "it's the only kind of product that you can use in a garbage disposal to break down all the grease build-up. Toilets? What other kind of product can you put in a sluggish toilet?"

Noting that bacteria colonies build up in sewer lines and help keep them clean, McKee detailed how they work. "What you're doing is putting a product in there that lives on waste," he stressed. "It grows. So you're putting in a maintenance product maybe once a month to keep this culture of bacteria growing in the pipe, so it can stay maintenance free. But as soon as we dump something down there that we shouldn't, then it kills off what bacteria are growing there and the sludge builds back up again."

Leach field failure is a major problem in rural areas where each house has its own on-site waste water treatment system. A number of factors create such failures. Most often, the cause is simply that the system isn't pumped or maintained as it should be, or it is overused. Lack of maintenance is handled by having the pumper come out often enough to prevent sludge from flushing out of the septic tank and into the leach or drain field.

Overuse, however, is a different problem, according to Commonwealth's Roten. "One of the problems you have with a septic system is the design of the system itself," Roten stated. "Not only does it have to run properly, but it has to be designed for the number of people using the facility. You can have a system designed for a family of four, and now it's being used by a family of eight. If the system is not designed to handle that capacity, then it's going to have a problem."

Enviro Care's McKee agreed. "What happens," he explained, "is that a layer of sludge builds up in the septic tank. It fills up with water and then you have an oversurge of water. Let's say somebody's taking a shower, or you have guests over for the weekend. Well, this oversurge of water goes into the septic tank and mixes up the sludge on the bottom. That goes over the baffle and sludge starts getting into the leach field. Then the field starts sludging up."

As sludge builds up in the leach field, a biomat forms. This is a layer of living and dead organic material that flushes through the leaching medium (gravel, sand, etc.) and settles on the interface between the underlying ground and the leach field. In the absence of an adequate supply of bacteria to digest and break down the biomat, it becomes restrictive, preventing water from soaking into the ground. As drainage slows, "ponding" begins. This is the point where a septic drain field has water standing on the surface. It's also the point at which your customer is looking at several thousand dollars of work to replace the leach field.

Bio-Rehabilitation

Often the leach field can be salvaged over a period of time through a combination of system maintenance and bio-treatment. System maintenance, including pumping sludge from the septic tank, is the vital first step to give the leach field and septic system a chance to rest, which simply means reduce the load on the system. This also provides time for bacterial colonies to break down the biomat that is plugging the leach field. By rest, we do not mean quite using the system. What is needed is a moderate flow of water, without sludge flushing out into the leach field and without chemicals such as drain cleaners or bleaches from the laundry that destroy the bacterial colony.

The second step is to treat the field itself. McKee told us about a friend's drain field that had gone bad. They actually dug it up, treated it heavily, and had it clean within a week. The norm, however, is more likely to be 60 - 90 days. He suggested mixing about five pounds of product with warm water and pouring it into the leach field breather pipe, then flushing some down the toilet as well.

But the real problem in salvaging an on-site waste water treatment system is getting the homeowner to go easy on it for a while.

"It's easy for us to say spend $5,000 or $6,000 to put in a new field," Roten observed. "Well, a lot of people can't afford that. If we can help them until they can afford it, that's great. If we can help them never get into that position, that's even better." Noting that successful treatment may depend on how degraded the system is and how much relief you can get it, Roten went on to make some pointed comments.

"If you are running a system at full capacity and you're trying to rejuvenate a lateral field, you may run into a problem where you're putting more water in the system than it can handle. If so, you're still going to have backups for a period of time," he said. "You have to restrict the flow as much as you can, give the system a chance for the colonies to work. If you could do one washing a week instead of four, if you could cut down the amount of water that you run in the house, that would help the system recover."

"And please, please, while you're doing this, stop using bleach for a couple of days," Donaldson added.

The same principles apply to correcting sewer lines in city residences and office buildings. Frequent initial applications of bio-additives allow the bacterial colonies to rejuvenate and return quickly to work. After the colonies are re-established and functioning well again, periodic supplements will maintain them. Frequency will depend on the volume of water moving through the system and on the variety of chemicals being carried in that water. As with leach field rehabilitation, it is important to restrict chemical flow into the system so that the bio-cultures can survive, grow, and do their job.

Summary

Bioaugmentation, then, offers a means of enlarging and enhancing sewer cleaning and maintenance services. The pumper is also in a unique position to become the supplier of a number of related non-toxic and beneficial bacterial products which homeowners (as well as businesses) will find helpful.

Perhaps of more interest, biological products offer assistance to the pumper in maintaining his customer's sewer lines and septic systems in good working order, at relatively low cost. He can literally put millions of nature's skilled laborers to work at each call he makes.

Bio-cultures Offer Variety of Opportunities

by John Lancaster

Copyright 1995 by John C. Lancaster All Rights Reserved

Bio-cultures offer a variety of opportunities for the pumper, many of which are overlooked.

First are additives that enhance the colonies of bacteria which naturally live in sewer lines and septic systems and which help keep the systems operating at peak efficiency. They are useful in cleaning up clogged leach fields and in remedying encrusted build-ups in sewer and drain lines.

Other bio-products include such items as rugs and carpet cleaners, household stain removers, compost accelerators, lawn dethatchers, and oil spot removers. Although not directly related to sewer pumping and line cleaning, these products represent an opportunity for additional sales that spring naturally from each call the pumper makes.

A septic pumper, for example, might notice oil spots on a customer's driveway or garage floor. He could offer the customer a product that eats the oil away, reducing it to CO2 and water and leaving clean concrete instead of a spotty drive.

As an alternative, he might keep a container on hand and treat the spot for the customer as a free service and as a lead-in to selling other products, such as carpet shampoos with bacterial cultures that eat stains from carpet - and remove pet odors.

Since these bacteria eat all dead organic material accumulated in the carpet, they will also attack any food particles or human organic waste (e.g. skin flakes and hair) in the carpet. This also helps control odors.

Additionally, of course, he would sell the customer a supply of line cleaning bacteria to keep the drain lines open.

Lawn de-thatchers and composters are cultures that increase the rate of deterioration of grass, leaves, and other lawn wastes. Enviro Care Corporation (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) provided a sample of a composting powder among other biological products.

Since I maintain a compost heap, I immediately applied a small amount to the pile. Results were noticeable in a matter of days. It's a simple compost pile on open ground, part of which was material from last year's mowing. While some decomposition had occurred, the pile was far from ready for use.

Within a week after applying their product - which includes a mixture of bacteria, enzymes, and fungi (fungi are particularly effective in breaking down lignin in wood products) - the material was composting rapidly.

The market for such products may seem far from the pumper's usual territory, but it is an excellent one. Many homeowners, in both city and country, spend a lot of time improving their lawns or gardening.

The same powder I used for composting can be watered in lightly on the lawn. It eats the thatch that builds up in lawns, converting it to on-the-spot food nutrients, while opening up space for the green grass to fill in, making the lawn rich and thick.

It is important to note that these bacteria live on dead organic material and do not attack live plants or animals. Thus the dead mat in a lawn is digested while green grass (even green weeds, unfortunately) is nourished by having more air and food.

Another application, perhaps more suited to rural customers, is the use of nature's friendly helpers to clean up lagoons and ponds. Industry routinely uses bacterial additives in a variety of liquid processing environments to break down petroleum wastes and a wide range of other products.

If your customer has, for example, stock ponds that are slick with scum and algae, a series of treatments with bio-additives can restore it to relatively clear water within, normally, 60 - 90 days. Yet the same products are safe enough to use in an aquarium.

And don't forget aquarium products. Some companies are now developing special bio-cultures to add to aquariums which will help keep the aquariums free of pollutants and healthy for fish.

By John C. Lancaster, - Editor & Writer 

Other sewer and environmental pages by the author:

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