Liquid purification or separation – Processes – Treatment by living organism
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-09
2002-05-21
Simmons, David A. (Department: 1724)
Liquid purification or separation
Processes
Treatment by living organism
C210S747300, C210S906000, C210S908000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06391201
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for biological nutrient control. The present invention marries together two disparate industries, namely, the shellfish growing industry and the sewage treatment industry. Normally, these industries are mutually exclusive for reasons explained in greater detail below. However, Applicant has found that the marriage of these two disparate industries together may provide results advantageous to both.
Numerous laws and powerful public opinion separate shellfish producers and waste disposal operators. The present invention would require a marriage of the two disciplines to create any significant financial reward.
Some of the chemical reactions and biological processes in the present invention, which are described below, are important in sewage treatment plants, while the others are important to shellfish growers. Sewage treatment and shellfish growing are at best competing uses of a public resource, open water. When these systems malfunction, there are legal battles and bad press for both sides. The divide between the two groups is re-enforced by health and environmental officials, regulations and law.
Shellfish are normally produced in waters where excess nutrients are not a problem, and nutrient removal is unnecessary. Existing Domestic and Foreign Laws require that shellfish produced for human consumption come from unpolluted water. New entrants into this field avoid polluted waters because they will not be allowed to sell their product. Established growers of shellfish avoid any mention of pollution in conjunction with their product. Excess nutrients, otherwise known as fertilizer, cause major detrimental effects in water environments and are a form of pollution. Pollution, in the public's perception, includes mercury, raw sewage, and oil spills. Shellfish producers' reputations are built by selling a safe and healthful food product to the public. They must avoid pollution and, beyond that, even the mention of it. Their reputation and livelihood depend on it.
In some areas in countries like Japan and France, low nutrient levels are the problem. In areas where nutrient levels are too low, this may preclude the use of nutrients available from pollution sources because they may contain dangerous contamination.
Sewage plant operators are members of a much larger group than shellfish producers. Because most pollution control is done by them in-house or for the general public, the operator is labeled a polluter. Their task is to clean up pollution.
The most obvious polluter is the point source which typically comes out the end of a pipe. These pollution discharges usually come from industrial or sewage treatment plants. The operators of these facilities are required to clean up the water they release, prior to discharging it. Cleaning up the body of water into which they have been discharging is equivalent to an admission of guilt; that they had not done their job. In the current political environment, the thrust of regulation and legislation has been to punish the polluters and to force them to clean up the water. If they accept this punishment, they admit guilt. Admission of guilt is not a wise move.
Because shellfish producers need clean water, they have been in the forefront in pressing for anti-polluter laws. They are pressured by public health scares concerning food born illness caused by eating raw or partially cooked shellfish. This push for clean water has further alienated the two disciplines. Because of the devastating economic impact on sales that immediately follows any reported outbreak of illness, new discharge points are strongly opposed by shellfish growers and harvesters alike. The recent
Pfeisteria piscicida
scare illustrates this point. Maryland Seafood industry sales fell by a reported $63 million as compared to the previous year.
Environmental groups have recently targeted the non-point source polluter, following events such as the Pfeisteria outbreak. Regulations have been quickly written to control this newly recognized threat to public health. To the general public, a non-point source polluter usually means the “farmer”. These new targets of regulation are also being told not to let pollutants get into the water. This group is still putting together methods to comply with the new rules. The political division between non-point source polluters and shellfish producers is growing stronger due to the way the Maryland's Pfeisteria outbreak was handled by politicians and the press.
Phosphorus fertilizer from chicken production farms was blamed for the outbreak.
Treating large bodies of water for excess phosphorus has been traditionally seen as prohibitively expensive, and some methods come with negative environmental side effects. One well-documented case, The Twin Lakes Study, was demonstrated in Ohio. Professors from Kent State treated one of two nearly identical lakes with alum. As planned, this chemical effectively sealed phosphorus into the bottom sediments. However, it had deleterious effects on crustacean populations, reducing species diversity by more than half. This makes hypolimnetic infusion of alum a non-viable choice for many areas. One example of where this would be especially true is the Chesapeake Bay, where the Blue Crab is the foundation of an important commercial fishery.
Nutrients are carried by water throughout the hydrological cycle. Man's activities and natural processes enrich this water with nutrients at every step along the way. Moisture gathers in clouds where it absorbs nitrates formed by lightning and pollution (over half of the nitrates formed in the world are produced by lightning). Internal combustion engines produce NO
2
gas that combines with the water in clouds. Dry materials that have been lifted into the air are picked up by the water droplets in clouds or by precipitation falling to the ground.
Precipitation, usually in the form of rain, can fall directly on open water or on land. Rain and melting snow dissolve more nitrates and phosphates from the land and carry them to open water. This nutrient loaded water can get to open water rapidly in the form of run-off. Precipitation can also seep through the soil to reach the water table, which flows downhill until it reaches open water. The water that sinks into the soil leaches more nutrients from the soil carrying them into the water table. The water table then feeds running streams and springs or seeps directly into the receiving waters. Water that does not evaporate eventually makes its way to our ponds, streams, and lakes and then on to the ocean by way of our estuaries.
Wind is another source of nutrients. It picks up dry material such as leaves, pollen dust, and soil, depositing them on the water surface.
Man pumps water out of the ground and then returns it to the ground, usually as nutrient rich treated sewage. This nutrient rich water is pumped directly down to the water table by sewage treatment plants or leaches from septic fields. These nutrients are then carried by the ground water into lakes and streams. In the case of an estuary, not only are nutrients introduced via rain and run-off, they are also brought in on every incoming tide. One way of looking at the unique position of an estuary is that it is always downhill from the land and that half the time it is downstream from the ocean (when the tide is incoming). Ninety six percent of the water leaving the Chesapeake Bay came into the Bay from the Atlantic Ocean.
Estuaries receive nutrient input from every direction, land, sea, and air. These nutrients arrive in open water in two forms, that which is immediately available to plants and that which is not. Phytoplankton almost immediately take up the available nutrients. This produces a chemical imbalance that drives chemical reactions, which turn some of the unavailable nutrients into available forms. Organic material, which enters the open water, is rapidly processed by bacteria and zooplankton releasing more nutrients. As these nutrients become available, they are rapidly t
Circle C Oyster Ranchers Association, Inc.
Prince Fred
Simmons David A.
Spiegel H. Jay
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