Using Wastewater Solids to Reclaim Strip-Mined Land

During 1967, the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago adopted a policy of land application as a method of using the solids produced in the wastewater treatment process. Research by the Agronomy Department of the University of Illinois, several demonstrations on farm land, reclamation of acid strip-mine spoils, fertilizing a land fill, and reclamation of an alkaline sand waste pit showed the value of using wastewater solids to reclaim marginal and submarginal lands. To launch the Solids-On-Land Program, 10,000 acres of land in Fulton County, Ill., was purchased, part of it previously strip-mined for coal. The Sanitary District initiated a water monitoring program, constructed holding basins, leveled the land, awarded a liquid fertilizer transportation contract, installed a distribution end application system, and began application and crop production. During 1972, the Sanitary District completed the first year of application and harvested the first corn crop. The corn yielded 60 bu per acre while the previous year in a demonstration field it yielded 56 and 13 bu per acre, respectively, on treated and untreated strip-mined land.