East Bay Utility Welcomes Winery Wastewater

(Wines&Vines) - Call it “hold and haul” or “tank and truck,” the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s (EBMUD) trucked waste-disposal program now enables 50 Northern California wineries to manage their wastewater output reliably and flexibly without costly investments in onsite infrastructure and/or local permit and hookup fees. With capacity to accept more wastewater at its Oakland treatment facility, EBMUD seeks more participation and is promoting its program to wineries at industry trade shows in California, including this month’s Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, Calif.

“Typically we’re getting the most interest for new business from new and expanding wineries,” said Steven Sherman, EBMUD’s business-development coordinator for resource recovery.

Wineries trucking waste to the Oakland facility are located in coastal counties from Mendocino in the north to San Luis Obispo in the south, in Central Valley counties from Sacramento to Fresno, and in the Sierra Foothills. Accepted winery waste includes: wine and juice products, grape skins, barrel and tank wash water, wine lees, process wastewater screenings, pond sludge, boiler and cooling tower blowdown, water softener concentrate, ion-exchange reject and acid/caustic rinse water.

Excess treatment capacity available

The EBMUD wastewater-treatment facility in Oakland was built and expanded during the 1970s and 1980s, when the district was home to a large number of food-processing facilities and canneries. Many of these food processors later closed or moved away, leaving the Oakland plant with excess capacity. In the early 2000s, EBMUD began promoting a trucked waste-disposal program to a wider geographic area as a way to utilize capacity and expand the utility’s waste-to-energy program. In addition to winery waste (currently only 5 % of the plant’s trucked waste volume), the facility accepts food scraps from restaurants and retailers, rendering and animal processing by-products, waste from other food and industrial processing operations, portable toilet and septic tank waste, fats, oils and grease.