A Typical Lake Restorer - Living Technologies Ltd

Case Study: Tyson Foods at Berlin, Maryland, USA.

A poultry processing waste treatment system (1 million gallons per day) in Berlin, Maryland required a wastewater treatment upgrade to meet effluent treatment standards and to reduce energy costs and the use of chemical treatment.

Adding Restorers to existing waste treatment lagoons provided a robust and flexible treatment option.

In the modified treatment system an existing aerated lagoon is maintained with subsurface aeration only. At the beginning of this lagoon is an anoxic denitrifying cell. Wastewater is polished in a 9 million-gallon lagoon using 12 linear Restorers. The nitrified effluent can be recycled back to the anoxic zone. This treatment method has reduced energy input by 70%-80%.

Twelve floating Restorers (2,100 ft2 each) were installed in the lagoon and secured from the banks in four separate cells, created with suspended fabric baffles. Water flows through the Restorer lagoon in a serpentine path to maximize treatment, gently aerated and circulated by subsurface, fine-bubble aeration.

The wastewater is treated both beneath the Restorers and in the open channels between them. The plant roots and the curtains of suspended fabric media act as submerged, aerobic, fixed film reactors.

The biological design of the Restorers and their placement within the lagoon provides diverse habitat (in the water column, sediments, and the Restorers) for a variety of microbial communities, each of which performs an important function in the treatment process.

Approximately 25,000 plants of 25 species were planted on the Restorers, only a handful of the 500 species that Ocean Arks has researched for use in wastewater treatment. Aquatic and water-loving species native to the region were chosen for their treatment properties, their ease of maintenance and root mass area. The operation and maintenance of the Restorers is simple and low in cost. Walkways provide access to the plants. In addition to the newly planted diversity, several local plants as well as turtles have migrated into the system, creating a unique self-organizing ecosystem.