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NEW BEDFORD – Wastewater Superintendent Ronald Labelle
admits he was skeptical when a small Quebec-based company suggested
it could wash away grease from the city’s clogged pipes
with bacteria, "A lot of people have tried to use bacteria
to reduce sludge and grease to control odors and none have had
much success." said Mr. Labelle, who oversees the city’s
vast network of sewers and the wastewater treatment plant.
Mr. Labelle also knew that New Bedford with its many fish
processing plants along the waterfront, has a particularly resistant
type of grease in its pipes. Frying thousands of pounds of fish
each day does a number on the pipes, clogging them the same way
cholesterol can clog a person’s arteries.
But Bacta-Pur, the company with a laboratory in North Hatley,
Quebec, and manufacturing headquarters in an old mill in New
Bedford. was persistent. And it promised savings of $500,000
a year to the city.
To show how effective its new technology and system is, Bacta-Pur
and Global Odor Control Technologies of New Bedford offered to
demonstrate the product in a city sewer line.
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Mr. Labelle pointed the company to one of the worst sewer
lines, the Front Street pumping station and a quarter- mile of
line, an area that takes in the lion’s share of the grease
produced by fish fryers along the waterfront.
After 30 days, Bacta-Pur’s technology had cleaned heavy
cakes of grease down to the red-brick bottom of the manhole.
"It worked beyond my expectations." said Mr. Labelle.
who is negotiating with the company to install the technology
on a much broader scale. Grease not only clogs pipes, it also
corrodes them, damages equipment and can degrade into a toxic
gas that is potentially deadly to city sewer workers.
Dr. Karl F. Ehrlich, the founder of Bacta-Pur, said his company
differs from other companies that apply bacteria to grease. Other
companies have simply injected the bacteria in water solution
into the pipes and much of it has washed away, barely touching
the grease.
Instead, Dr. Ehrlich developed a machine called a Bactivator
that heats and prepares the bacteria for maximum destruction
of the grease.
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"The bacteria have to be starving" said Dr. Ehrlich.
Then th9 are injected into the pipes every six minutes, 24 hours
a day, by the machine. The bacteria actually digest the grease,
breaking it apart into water, carbon dioxide and free fatty acids,
which wash away from metal, concrete and brick.
The 13 bacteria used in the solution are naturally occurring
and not modified genetically.
Dr. Ehrlich, who was trained as a marine biologist said the
bacteria will not harm Buzzards Bay or any water body and its
life forms. In fact, he said they die upon contact with salt
water.
The system is much safer for the environment than any of the
chemicals that many cities dump into sewers to remove grease,
he said.
Bacta-Pur also estimates that New Bedford can save $500,000
each year by using Bacta-Pur in its 28 pumping stations and at
the treatment plant.
The company, which is in one of the Hathaway mill buildings
off Gifford Street in the South End, sells its grease-reducing
systems to American International Seafoods of New Bedford,
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Fenway Park and the Fleet Center in Boston. Ocean Spray on
the Cape, and a number of restaurants in the region.
Bacta-Pur is also working with restaurants in New York City.
lf the company convinces New Bedford to purchase its system,
the city will be the first municipality to install Bactivators
throughout an entire municipal waste system.
Mr. Labelle is optimistic that the technology can help the
city cut costs. "It costs us $3 million each year to dispose
of sludge," he said. "lf we can reduce that by even
20 percent, that's a big saving."
Dr. Ehrlich said he planned to submit a proposal with cost
estimates to the city in the next few months.
Staff writer Monica Allen
covers the environment
and education.
She can be reached at
979-4447 and mallen@s-t.com
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