New nutrient recovery facility opening in York, PA
3 Sep, 2010 LM Direct!YORK, PA — The City of York and Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. will officially unveil their new nutrient recovery facility at the York Wastewater Treatment Plant (York WWTP) on Sept. 16. The facility uses Ostara’s Pearl Nutrient Recovery Process to recover nutrients such as phosphorus and ammonia from the York WWTP’s wastewater stream to produce an environmentally friendly, slow release fertilizer, marketed as Crystal Green.
The opening ceremony will showcase a unique public/private partnership where Ostara has designed, built and financed the nutrient recovery facility for a monthly treatment fee, which will help York WWTP efficiently meet their nutrient limits and reduce operational costs. These nutrient recovery benefits are provided without the City of York having to make any capital investment in the system. Furthermore, revenues from the sale of Crystal Green fertilizer produced at the plant are shared with the City of York thereby further improving the economics of the facility.
Ostara’s nutrient recovery facility is the second nutrient recovery system of its kind in the nutrient sensitive Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The first facility opened at Hampton Roads Sanitation District’s Nansemond Wastewater Treatment Plant in May 2010. During a pilot study, conducted at the York WWTP in spring 2008, it was found that the Pearl process recovered more than 90% of the phosphorus and 20% of the nitrogen that would normally be returned back to the plant from the solids processing.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will present the keynote address at the grand opening at the York Wastewater Treatment Plant. The ceremony begins at 11:30 a.m. Kennedy is an Ostara board member and partner at VantagePoint Venure Partners, environmental advocate and attorney. There will also be remarks by Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell, Chairman of the York City Sewer Authority JT Hand, and Ostara CEO Phillip Abrary.
Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies Inc. designs, builds and sells a new generation of water treatment systems – a nutrient recovery solution that creates value from waste by removing nutrients from wastewater and transforming them into revenue-generating, environmentally friendly commercial fertilizer. Ostara is backed by VantagePoint Venture Partners in the United States and Frog Capital in the United Kingdom.
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