Planned Tree Farm To Use Waste From Treatment Plant

North Eugene Oregon-
A multi-million dollar marriage between trees and sludge is planned for north Eugene. It is a unique plan to use the bi-product from the sewage treatment process, known as biosolids. The Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission offers biosolids as free fertilizer to local farmers. But some of it will soon have a new use.
600 acres next to the biosolid facility in north Eugene will become a hybrid poplar tree farm. Next spring the fields will be home to the first of a planned 24,000 poplar trees, thriving on biosolids and reclaimed water from the sewage treatment plant. "Poplars seem to be adapted to our environment better than the other crops do in terms of the weather," explains Ken Vanderford, a Residuals Supervisor at the biosolids facility. "The amount of moisture we see and the amount of nutrients we'll be applying to them."
Hybrid poplars grow very fast. In about eight years they will be harvested with the wood used as cores for plywood, decorative trim, even frames for some furniture. Selling the wood will help pay for the project, but the trees' primary purpose will be to use the biosolids.
Managers will have better control over when and how much biosolid will be applied, rather than relying completely on local farmers as a market for the product. Pipelines to the field have to be built, and it is yet to be determined who will operate the tree farm for the local wastewater management group. But it is believed that it will become the largest waste reclamation project of its kind.
The $5 million dollar price tag for this project will be paid for by the sewer fees collected in Eugene, Springfield and unincorporated Lane County.

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