AN ETP WALL OF FOAM

                                                               47. AN ETP WALL OF FOAM

There is a Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee : this I can understand.  I find also a South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Sioux Falls, S.D. ; National midget car Hall of Fame in Wisconsin;  International Jewish sports Hall of Fame in Israel ; Baseball Hall of Fame, Basketball Hall of Fame, Oddball Hall of Fame etc.  And there are further extensions to this theme such as the Walk of Fame, Wall of Fame and so on.  The numbers and variety are truly mind boggling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_halls_and_walks_of_fame

It makes me wonder what kind of people are desperate enough to go visiting these places ? What is their mental acumen and maturity level ?  and what is their takeaway from such memorable outings ?    Be that as it may, this story is about the time I inadvertently walked into a Wall of Foam in an ETP      ( Effluent Treatment Plant).

I moved to Bangalore from Bombay in the year 1986, after quitting Voltas International in disgust ( see a Joint Venture Company in Yemen). I found temporary accommodation in Bangalore for the family and myself on Charles Campbell Road in Cox Town.  Quite by accident one day, I bumped into an old colleague of mine from Dorr-Oliver now settled in the very same neighbourhood.  B. Velan was a brilliant mechanical engineer, and headed the engineering and drawing operations of Dorr-Oliver in the Madras office.  After quitting Dorr-Oliver, he set up Scorpio Engineering in Bangalore, manufacturing bulk material handling systems and equipments. 

With active encouragement from Venkataraman ( RIP) another old colleague of mine from Voltas based in Madras,  Velan ventured into wastewater treatment, banking on his past experience in Dorr-Oliver and Venkat’s process and design expertise.  Little did he realise the pitfalls in the business. They had managed to bag an order for an ETP at Mysore Acetate and Chemicals ( MACC) a particularly complex wastewater, and had completed erection of the plant when I walked into their parlour and was roped in to startup, stabilize and commission the treatment plant.  This was possibly one of the first assignments for Ecotech in Bangalore in the year 1987, and to keep the home fires burning, I grabbed this opportunity.

The Mysore Acetate and Chemicals Ltd. is one of the oldest industrial undertakings of the Govt. of Karnataka, now defunct and boarded up, as ought to be the case with all ventures of the Govt., including that of governance.  MACC is located in a place very imaginatively named Acetate Town, on the outskirts of the equally drab and unimpressive town of Mandya in the South Eastern part of the State.  MACC produced Cellulose Triacetate and related products used for making tooth brush handles, TV cabinets, photo film and so forth from cellulosic materials such as cotton, wood chips and wood pulp.  In the main, two streams of process waste were generated from the operations, the one called black liquor and the other the high COD ( organic content)  stream.  The two streams were segregated at source and in the ETP, received separate and different treatment.

Velan the master had excelled himself In this project insofar as of some of the mechanical equipments he designed : Instead of Circular clarifiers, there were rectangular clarifiers ( highly space efficient) with the bridge moving up and down along rail tracks, fitted with limit and reversing switches at both extremities,  much like Overhead traveling cranes.  I was fairly comfortable with this design having previously commissioned such units at the Dudeshwar Water Treatment pant for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation about 5 years previously.

At the exit end of the treatment plant, in order to collect a composite sample of  treated water ( as opposed to a grab sample)  there was a Ferris wheel like contraption going round and round, picking up a smidgeon of a sample of the water at every rotation and depositing it in a compositing bottle placed alongside.  The speed of the Ferris wheel could be varied at will by the simple device of turning a screw.  The Aeration tanks in the Treatment plant were however outfitted with High Speed Floating Aerators, which were not entirely to my liking.

The fault lay however in the design of the Treatment plant.

The usually meticulous and diligent Venkataraman had slipped up in the design.  He did later confess to me that in their hurry to put in the tender, he had not made a detailed independent study of the effluent characteristics, nor validated the figures specified by MACC :  The High COD stream indeed lived up to its name.   But instead of the design value of 3000 mg/L of COD, in reality it turned out to be in the range of around 10,000 mg/L, when I was commissioning the treatment plant. This high COD stream was absolutely clear, colourlesss and odourless much like the bottled mineral water of today, and would deceive any person at first glance.   This always brings to my mind the haughty boast of an ex chairman of the Karnataka Pollution Control Board ( an Academic, mind you)  who claimed he could determine the COD of any wastewater by merely looking at it.  May be if we had more such super human specimens, we would not need scientific testing laboratories with associated paraphernalia of chemists, chemicals, glassware, instruments etc.

The very refractory black liquor stream also was very difficult to stabilize because of the high speed floating aerators which were simply shearing and pulverizing the bacterial flocs and not allowing them to settle in the clarifier. 

Although we could demonstrate good performance of the ETP in terms of pollutant removals in absolute terms ( Kg COD/ day), we could not achieve the low concentration levels ( mg/L ) on account of the wrong design figures supplied by MACC.  The clients too reconciled themselves to this fate, albeit with some reluctance.

I had posted a chemist full time at MACC to supervise the commissioning of the ETP, and I made fortnightly visits from Bangalore to monitor the progress and give necessary guiding instructions.

It was a cold, cold morning in December, when Nagaraj ( the MACC Chemical engineer in charge of the ETP) and I walked towards the ETP a little distance away from the main factory.  The ETP was now hidden from view by a 12 foot high wall, apparently a new construction, not there on my previous visit, neatly whitewashed and shining bright against the winter sun.  Lumbering towards the Wall and the ETP on that cold winter morning,  I expressed my surprise to Nagaraj that a Government owned unit could put up such a huge construction in such a short period of time.

And that was when I walked into a Wall of Foam. For a few moments I was absolutely stunned when I discovered the wall to be entirely made up of thick white foam, churned up by the high speed aerators, bobbing forlornly in the middle of the aeration tank, trapped within the four walls of foam.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                                December 03, 2011

P.S :  A combination of wrong design ( incorrect COD figure), wrong engineering ( High speed aerators shearing the bacterial flocs), and environmental factors ( Cold Night Temperatures) conspired overnight to build the huge wall of foam.

A WIN WIN PPP

54. A WIN - WIN PPP

This is a success story of a residential community in a smallish apartment complex consisting of 160 flats, off Hosur Road in Singasandra, Bangalore.  Singasandra ! – a lyrical name as a reporter of a local newspaper noted while describing this quaint little village it was about 20 years ago : farms and agriculture fields dotted the landscape and the only noteworthy landmark in the neighbourhood was the newly opened Manipal County Club, far from the madding crowd !  A swanky resort, ahead of its times, spread over several acres of lush greenery and lawns - a legacy of this laid back farming community, oblivious of the devastation that was to befall it a few years later from the fledgling IT industry in the neighbouring Doddatogur Village,  now only known and recognized as Electronics City.

This apartment complex had a Sewage Treatment Plant ( STP) based on the Sequencing Batch Reactor ( SBR) technology designed to handle 100 KLD, which was not performing satisfactorily for various reasons : also a good proportion of the incoming wastewater bypassed the STP totally.

Now, several architects, plumbing consultants ( my favourite villains), vendors of equipment and indeed even prospective clients and the Pollution Control Board officials are of the opinion that I promote only the tried, time tested and successful conventional extended aeration biological system for an STP of a residential complex.  They are right of course.  They also believe that I actively discourage other variants of the technology ( Electrocoagulation, SBR, MBBR, MBR etc.) for this application.  Right on the money again.  Let me explain the rationale for my preferences.

It is my firm belief borne out of close interactions for over 25 years with the worthies mentioned above that finer nuances of available treatment technologies and the specific engineering challenges unique to these technologies are totally beyond their comprehension.  It requires a keen chemical engineering brain coupled with sound knowledge of environmental engineering principles and a large dose of common sense ( all of which with due modesty, I claim to have in great abundance) to  assess and determine the Best Available Technology ( BAT) or Best Practicable Technology ( BPT) as the case may be for a particular situation. 

As a student of Chemical Engineering I am fully cognizant of advantages of a batch reactor where first order reaction kinetics prevail.  Also, Fluidised Bed reactors have been in use in chemical engineering practice for several decades now ( MBBR being the STP equivalent ) to not overly excite me like a new kid on the block.  What is new now is application of these age old technologies in biological wastewater treatment.  Similar is the case with Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) technology, which has now been in use for decades for milder applications such as dialysis, osmosis etc., operating on simpler fluids ( blood, sea water ) vastly different from the harsh character of wastewater -  more so under Indian conditions.

I fully approve of these technologies, provided they are applied with appropriate engineering principles and precepts to deliver satisfactory treatment performance at optimal cost over the life of the STP : and when this is done, the conventional STP stands head and shoulders above all of these technologies as on date.  I speak with some authority, after having completed detailed studies on several STP’s  with these technology variants on a specific assignment given to us by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board.  So what reason would I have to recommend second best or to offer an option to my client ?  I have been tasked to give him the best advice : not to sit on the fence.

Enough of digression and let me get back to Singasandra.

Due to acute constraints of space, we could not convert the SBR to the conventional mode of treatment.  Therefore, we did the next best thing available to us : to apply better engineering principles demanded by the SBR technology, and reengineer the plant. The total cost was around Rs. 4.5 lakhs to revive and resuscitate this dead STP.  Simple arithmetic showed that if 50 KLD of out of the 100 KLD of treated water could be reused for purposes such as toilet flushing, gardens and car wash, savings in fresh water purchase through tankers will pay back this amount within six months.  The rest of 50 KLD of treated water had to perforce be disposed off outside.

Enter Manipal County Club in the picture.  Suffering from huge shortage of water to tend to their greenery and lawns, this neighbour was looking for a perennial source of good quality water for their irrigation needs.  We drafted a model Sale – Purchase Agreement for this transaction between the two good neighbours whereby the excess 50 KLD could find productive use, for mutual benefit.

Surely a Win - Win situation for the parties where Private -Private Partnership can prove beneficial to both and also their immediate Environment.

Have excess treated water ? Talk to your neighbour.  The draft Agreement is ready.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                 September 24, 2012

DRAFT OF AGREEMENT

THIS AGREEMENT made at Bangalore on the _____ Day of ____________ BETWEEN

XXXXX  Apartment Owners’ Association,  a Housing Society registered under the Registrar of Societies, Bangalore, and having its office at ___________  Hereinafter referred to as PROVIDER on the ONE PART

And YYYYYY, carrying on business of a social club at ____________ hereinafter referred to as “RECIPIENT” on the SECOND PART  

NOW, it is hereby Agreed by and between the parties hereto as follows in respect of  Excess Treated water from the STP of the Provider to be supplied to the Recipient, and the Terms and Conditions governing same :

PREAMBLE

1.     The Provider is a residential Apt. complex with an STP of installed capacity of 100 KLD

2.     The STP is functioning satisfactorily after a recent exercise in upgradation of physical facilities in the STP and operational practices.

3.     The treated water meets quality specifications of the KSPCB as per their “Urban Reuse Standards”.

4.     The Provider is already utilizing treated water for their own reuse purposes such as gardening and toilets flush

5.     After exhausting all reuse options, there remains an excess of treated water ranging from 40 to 50 KLD from the STP at the disposal of the PROVIDER

6.     The Recipient is a commercial Social club in the neighbourhood of the Provider, and has sufficient garden and lawn space and is need of good quality water for irrigation and upkeep of the green areas.

7.     In order to conserve fresh water, and to be an environmentally friendly and responsible corporate citizen, the Recipient is desirous of  procuring excess treated STP water from the Provider for garden and irrigation use

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

8.     The Agreement shall be for a period of one calendar year from date of signing of this Agreement

9.     The Agreement may be renewed at the end of the year for such further period by mutual consent, incorporating any amendments, if necessary

10.  The Provider agrees to provide excess STP treated water to the extent of 40-50 KLD meeting KSPCB stds. for Urban Reuse, on a best effort basis which is far superior to the quality of water required for irrigation use as prescribed under the Environment Protection Act and Rules made thereunder

11.  No liability direct, indirect or vicarious or of any other description will attach to the Provider consequent to the  Recipient transporting and  using treated water on his premises for whatsoever purpose(s) he deems fit

12.  The Recipient agrees to lift the excess treated water even in the event of temporary failure to meet Urban Reuse quality, as  long the water meets quality requirements specified for irrigation use in Schedule VI,  Rule 3A of the Environment Protection Rules.(1986)

13.  The Recipient shall be solely responsible for loading, transportation and unloading of the excess treated water from the premises of the Provider to and on his own premises.

14.  For loading of the excess treated water into tankers provided by the Recipient, the Provider shall maintain a pump with necessary piping of upto 20 m in length

15.  The Recipient undertakes to lift all excess treated water upto 50 KLD on a daily basis, and the Provider undertakes to deliver the said quantity, without let and without exception throughout the period of the Agreement

16.  The 50 KLD shall be delivered by the Provider not as a single consignment, but spread over 16 hours in the day as determined and dictated by hourly generation of excess treated water

17.  This Agreement is subject to Force Majeure conditions such as scarcity of fresh water at the Provider’s premises,  Acts of God,  Civil strife, Accidents in the STP or unforeseen breakdown of equipment(s) in the STP.

18.   The Recipient agrees to pay the Provider as consideration for above supply of treated water, a sum of Rs. ZZ  per Kiloliter of excess treated water lifted from the STP of the provider, the measure used  being the volumetric capacity of the tanker used by the Recipient for transportation

19.  A log book/ manifest shall be maintained at the STP of the Provider for the purpose of  recording the quantity of excess treated water thus lifted by the Recipient, which shall be signed by authorized representatives of both parties to this Agreement as necessary and sufficient proof of delivery of the recorded quantity of excess treated water

20.  Payment for the treated water thus lifted by the Recipient shall be paid to the Provider at the end of every month based on records maintained as above.  An invoice shall be raised by the Provider at the end of every month in the name of the Recipient, and payment shall be made within 7 days of raising of invoice

21.  The rate as specified above shall be fixed and valid for the entire period of the Agreement, subject to revision by mutual consent at the time of each renewal of Agreement

IN WITENESS WHEREOF, the Parties have appended their signatures on the Day, Month and Year mentioned above as token of  having accepted above Terms and Conditions.

For XXX Apt. Owners’ Assoc.                                                                         For YYYY

Authorised Signatory                                                                                         Authorised Signatory

Witness 1 :                                                                                                            Witness 1 :

Witness 2 :                                                                                                            Witness 2 :

TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE

53. TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE

Most of my School and college days were spent in the balmy city of Madras in the grandparental home in Mylapore.  Balmy because of the close proximity to the Bay of Bengal, the Santhome beach being just a stone’s throw away.   As the youngest at home, it fell on me to run little errands for my aunts, uncles, and grandparents, buying household provisions, odds and ends from the Bazaar street round the corner.  I loved this Bazaar street with its myriad little shops purveying all kinds of goodies.  Their offerings to my various senses was equally pleasant : rhythmic thump thump thump of the motorized pounding machine releasing to the atmosphere pungent odour of red chillies, the heady aroma of roasting coffee beans, the sweet smell of roasting chickpeas from Panchaksharam’s Pattani shop, a sudden draft of cold air while passing by  the Manickam Ice candy factory.  Ramanathan the ice candy man was also the leg spinner of our underarm street corner cricket team.

Our Lady of Bon Secours school ( upto 5^th Std. only)  was at the farthest end of the Bazaar street from our home, and this was my daily commute to school, a walk of about 15 minutes each way.  I knew each and every shop on this street like the back of my hand and every roadside vendor including the petty vegetable ladies displaying their wares in neat small stacks ( kooru in Tamil ) for retail sale and no bargaining. 

Basha Bhai’s roadside stall was the favourite of the little boys, with a small mob always milling around him.  For reasons I cannot fathom till today, there were well defined seasons in the year for various games and toys : for marbles, for gilli danda, for the spinning top  ( a thumbtack delicately hammered in on its head for perfect balance)  for colorful toy kites and special pink and orange manja to go with the kites : and Basha Bhai had the best of these goodies.  His catapults made out of seasoned wood from the guava tree was the best, or so he claimed.  Although I had no Algebra at that time, I was the first on the buzzer to answer one of his trick questions on this subject and was rewarded with that catty, and a prophecy that one day I would become a great man.  Basha Bhai had come to Madras from Tirunelveli in the deep South, and had no family to call his own.

But all this is digressing.  Once in a blue moon, I would sally forth to Bazaar street to buy a razor blade for my grandfather for his daily shave.  Wilkinson Sword was his brand and the blade had four shaving edges ( two sides x front & back ) the numbers neatly printed on the blade so that one could choose the edge for the day’s shave.  My grandfather frugal man that he was, kept a green, translucent whetstone made of glass in the shape of a soap dish, the surface suitably roughed up to hone the edges of the blade by stropping it along the surface with neat small strokes.  The blade then would last forever and ever.

Of course, in those days Grandfather had all the time in the world to do the sharpening, pick the correct edge of the blade,  unscrew the razor handle, remove the top plate, sandwich the blade in between the two plates, screw it tight again, ready for the shave.

A few decades later, Gillette came with the very handy disposable razor for people on the move.  Many more years of serious and sustained research led to the development of the twin Blade razor, the underlying theory being two blades are better than one, and certainly better for the Company’s bottomline.  The Gillette Mach 3 was but a natural evolution from the twin blade contraption : How could three be any less than two ?  I doubt if even a master marketeer like Gillette would dare to venture beyond three.  One cannot fool all the people all the time.

Taking a cue from Gillette ( two is better than one), a simple biological Sewage Treatment Plant in Bangalore ( A truly Hitech city) has been built with two stages of Aeration.  Even common barbers have become environmental consultants in the great state of Karnataka, where earlier only plumbing consultants roamed free.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                           August 23, 2012

Stealing a Design for a Treatment Plant

In India, one need's to be a thief, an unscrupulous businessman, a politician, a bribe giver and a bribe taker to achieve success and amass wealth beyond one's true intrinsic worth.  Here is one such story of a Corporate group who have risen to fame and fortune by just such criminal acts, which continues to this day in several other fields ranging from telecommunications to petrochemicals.

46. STEALING A DESIGN FOR A TREAMENT PLANT

Stealing is not an uncommon occupation for many in India : on the streets, the pick pockets steal wallets  ; from the hallowed halls of legislatures, corrupt politicians steal and grab land while watching porn on the side for self edification ; from the ivory towers of academia, academic fraudsters steal reports and research papers from technical journals, and from plush air conditioned offices, greedy businessmen and industrialists steal intellectual property, indulge in bribery, price fixing, share price manipulations among other vile anti national activities.  This is a story of one such common thief of the last variety, who unfortunately, but appropriately enough in India has become a leading Business house.  In any other civilized country with a decent judicial system, these worthies would be behind bars for life.

In the years 1981-82, I was approaching the end of my stint as an environmental engineer working in Hindustan Dorr-Oliver. One of the new kids on the block and an upcoming textiles giant had set up a modern manufacturing unit on the outskirts of Ahmedabad : now of course, the empire is split and the two factions are into other major business ventures and fraudulent activities of various shades.

This textile unit wanted to put up a showcase treatment plant for their process effluents, in keeping with their vaunted high tech and high profile façade : I was the unwitting lamb taken to slaughter by crooks in gentlemen’s guise.

It started off in a fairly routine manner : I developed an outline design of the treatment plant for the facility.  By and by, more details and sophistication were added to the design, and also a little bit of preliminary engineering.  At their beck and call, I would catch the night train to Ahmedabad, reach early in the morning, stay in a hotel on Ashram Road ( I forget the name of the hotel), breakfast on onion uthappam at the Woodlands restaurant nearby and catch the company staff vehicle from in front of the sanitaryware store on Ashram Road.

Still a greenhorn and wet behind the ears, I fell for all the blandishments these crooks held out to me : they assured me the project had been decided in our favour, and it was just a matter of time and some more fine tuning.  And as a token of their good faith, once in a while, they would even take me to their Top Dog, who happened to be the brother of the founding father of the empire.

On one occasion, deeply etched in my memory, on an urgent call from these unreliable and uncouth louts, I air dashed to Ahmedabad by the morning flight from Bombay.  Suitable clarifications given, the discussion wound up before noon of that day.   For want of something better to do, on a whim I called up Indian Airlines to reconfirm my return flight later in the evening.  The kindly soul at the other end informed me that there was a chartered flight taking off to Bombay within the next hour, and I could make it on the flight, if I hurried to the airport.  Thus it was that I found myself amidst a group of enthusiastic and highly vocal devotees of the Swaminarayan sect who had chartered the flight   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaminarayan : I joined my new found friends in lusty singing of Bhajans all the way back on that short flight to Bombay.

The culture of an organization I suppose trickles down from the top, and seeps into the very being of the managers and other flunkeys, if they are to keep their jobs in this kind of an organization.  The same culture of devious behaviour, chicanery and skulduggery evidently cannot be removed from the genes of succeeding generations, as I have observed in later years, being a keen and critical observer of this industrial group.

This treatment plant was also one of the first where I put in a novel correction unit to control the Sodium percentage in the wastewater to less than 60 % as prescribed in the Environment Protection Rules :  Treated water would percolate through a filter bed comprising Gypsum among other support media.  This was also one of my first designs of a treatment plant in modular fashion to accommodate the major expansion plans of this overambitious group : In later years this group would grow to be one of the largest industrial conglomerates in India, by fair means or foul.

For the final round of discussions and closing the deal, I was asked to come to meet the Big Brother himself with all final drawings, specifications, details - the works.  As I ceremoniously handed over the designs to the dark complexioned fraudster, I could not help but think that his smile was more a smirk : the same inane, self satisfied smile - smirk I find in his offspring these days.

A month later, I was given the bad news that the project had been handed over to one of our competitors : their claim to fame and fortune ? This competitor also happened to be a supplier of textile machinery to the group.  And they had in their hands the perfect designs for the treatment plant, authored by an expert in the field by name Dr. A S Kodavasal.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                December 03, 2011

P.S :  Since that day, I have taken a vow not to touch any of this Group’s companies with a barge pole.  I only hit back at them in my own small way by selectively purchasing their “Buy one get one free” deals in their freshly opened shops.

Tapioca Starch Wastewater Treatment

Salem in Tamilnadu is the land of tapioca, starch and sago.  Over several visits to these factories about 15 years ago, a simple and cost effective Treatment scheme was developed for treating these highly polluting wastewaters from starch production operations.  However, recent reports suggest that many factories have not yet installed proper waste treatment facilities. Not that the farmers lack the funds for putting up these plants.  The principal reason is official apathy and laissez faire attitude that also helps bring in big bucks for turning a blind eye to environmental pollution, so common in our country.

50. STARCH, TAPIOCA SAGO  WASTEWATER TREATMENT

Around Fifteen years ago, I made a number of trips to the sleepy little town of Salem in central Tamilnadu.  I was invited by SAGOSERVE, a Cooperative undertaking of the Salem District Starch and Sago Producers to study their production process and recommend a suitable treatment scheme for the wastewaters generated in the process.  It was a pleasant enough drive of  5 hours to Salem from Bangalore via Hosur, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri and the Thoppur Ghats, at a time before the toll Expressway was even contemplated.

http://www.sagoserve.com/

I am ashamed to confess, up until that time, I had imagined that Sabudana (Jawwarisi in Tamil) was a grain crop akin to rice or wheat, grown in vast green fields of the stuff, rippling and swaying  in the breeze.

Sabudana or Sago pearls are manufactured products from starch milled out of Tapioca tubers grown extensively in and around Salem.  Tapioca is called by different names in different parts of the world : native to the Amazonian jungles of South America, tapioca’s high food and nutritive value found it quickly proliferating all over the world, thanks to the colonizing powers such as Portugal, France etc.  Colonialism of previous centuries did indeed have many positives to its credit.  Called Yuca ( not Yucca) in its native lands,  Manioc in France and French speaking Africa,  Cassava in English speaking colonies, the root tubers are rich in starch, Calcium, Phosphorus and Vitamin C with little fat or proteins.

Just a few miles outside of Salem town, I visited one of the larger and more progressive tapioca farmers and starch manufacturer.  The rich bounty that this magic crop had brought to this humble farmer was plain to see.  In the midst of a vast plantation of tapioca now stood a modern Bungalow, displacing the thatched hut of not many years ago : A gleaming Mercedes Benz stood in the portico earlier occupied by the bullock cart : and a little distance away the Starch and Sago factory was humming with activity,  women and child labourers busily peeling the freshly harvested tubers and cutting them into pieces 3 to 4 inches long to be fed into the hungry jaws of the milling machine.  A modern day replica of the Tea Estates from a century ago : only the charm of the hills, the panache of the Planters and their style was missing in the hot plains of Salem.  I hasten to add this is in no way meant to be derogatory of these tapioca farmers.  True sons of the soil, they were gracious hosts in their own way, entirely without artifice and humbug: a first generation of farmers reaping the rich rewards now for the blood, toil, tears and sweat of their forefathers who tilled these same parched lands for a subsistence living.

The cut tapioca tubers are crushed and milled along with added water in a roller crushing machine ( like the ones used for crushing sugarcane, but only much larger ) to produce what the locals call the “milk” of tapioca. Milk white in colour, the milk or the slurry is allowed to settle in large shallow basins, when the solid starch particles settle out, and the supernatant water is drained off.  The solid starch is then heated lightly to retain the right amount of moisture, after which it is fed into a vibratory screen like contraption, where the solids form themselves into tiny round pearls, rolling, tumbling and dancing off the machine as Sabudana.

It is critical to process the tubers within a day of harvest : otherwise, enzymatic action under mildly acidic conditions converts and reduces the starch ( a polysaccharide) to its several hydrolysis products such as maltose, dextrose, fructose and glucose.  Starch is basically insoluble in cold water, but not so the lower saccharides.

The wastewater from the starch and sago making operations is mainly the supernatant drawn off form the settling basins.  Some of the salient features of this industry in Salem and the wastewater characteristics are  :

Number of Sago units                             : 700 to 800 ( in the year 1995 -96)

Processing Capacity of plant                   : 50 to 150 MT per day

Wastewater generated                            : 200 to 600 cum/d

Biochemical Oxygen Demand ( BOD)       : 4000 mg/L ( easily biodegradeable organic matter)

Chemical Oxygen Demand ( COD )         : 5500 mg/L

pH                                                                     : 5.0 to 5.5

At the time of my visit there was not a single treatment plant in the entire industry : however, pressure was building up for setting up treatment plants both from the Tamilnadu Pollution Control Board as well as the Green bench of the Madras High Court.

Some of the Design considerations and criteria I had set for myself in this environment were as follows:

-          Rural setting of the starch and sago units

-          Seasonal nature of operations ( Peak/ Lean)

-          The Farmers predisposition towards this unexpected expenditure

-          Historical argument of “ No harm done to the soil or groundwater”

-          No previous prototype or precedent of treatment plant

-          Low level of operator skills

-          Maximise local materials in construction of treatment plant

-          Minimise costs

-          By products utilization for beneficial use

The final design presented to SAGOSERVE for a 200 / 100 KLD ( Peak/ Lean season ) plant consisted of a an Anaerobic digestor in two compartments ( one compartment working during lean season), followed by an Aerobic treatment stage.  Excess sludge would be dried and disposed off from sludge drying beds, area availability not being of concern.  About 300 cum/d of biogas would be generated from the anaerobic digestor, containing approx. 65 % methane, which could be productively used as fuel in the drying operations of starch and sago in the factory.  Total cost of the plant was projected at Rs. 18-20 Lakhs, which was quite economical for a plant of this size.  Total land area required for the treatment plant would be around 800 Sqm.

Treated water with BOD level of 100 mg/L or less would be reused on the tapioca fields for irrigation

The design was well received both by SAGOSERVE and the farmers I had visited during my trips to Salem.  The Pollution Control Board too was quite happy to have a workable design to meet their stipulated quality of treated water : and I was happy to have contributed a little bit in cleaning up the environment around Salem town.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                 December 29, 2011

P.S. : Every visit to Salem brings to mind an old friend of mine.  Rangarajan Kumaramangalam represented the Salem Parliamentary constituency in the years 1984-1996 as the Indian National Congress candidate and was a Minister in the Narasimha Rao Govt.  Later, he switched to the BJP and was elected from the Trichy Parliamentary constituency, and served also as a minister in the Vajpayee Govt.

Ranga was squat and heavy built in the six years I knew him as a classmate in the Madras Christian College School and was promptly nicknamed “The Rhino”.  Ranga hailed from an illustrious family of Tamilnadu who served with distinction both in the State and National politics.  A suave and accomplished politician, and an unassuming soul, Ranga died young at the age of 48.  R.I.P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangarajan_Kumaramangalam

WASTEWATER TREATMENT IN COFFEE ESTATES

Although a Piscean by birth, hills and mountains hold more fascination for me than beaches.  It may be because I have lived for several years in Santhome, a stone's throw away from the Bay of Bengal in Madras : The vast open expanse of sand and more sand, the unceasing, repetitive drone of breakers and the vista of the sea stretching to the horizon, melding with the sky holds little mystery.  

Trips to Coffee estates in Hassan and Chikamagalur in the Malnad regions of Karnataka on behalf of the Coffee Board of India were therefore to me in the nature of mixing business with pleasure. The variegated scenery of dense forests, peppered with coffee estates,   the twisting and turning drive with a gurgling mountain stream for company, the call of a myriad birds, a gentle breeze soughing through the tree tops and suddenly a silvery waterfall on a sheer rock face, battering moss laden boulders below : Ha ! the magic of the mountains !

Here is the story of journey to coffee estates in order to develop an optimal treatment scheme for wastewaters from coffee pulping operations.

51. WASTEWATER TREATMENT IN COFFEE ESTATES

BACKGOUND

In the year 1996, Mr. Philipose Mathai, IAS, then Chairman of the Coffee Board of India, requested an ex Chairman of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board to constitute a technical team to visit Coffee plantations in the Coffee  growing districts of Karnataka to study the coffee pulping operations and recommend a suitable treatment scheme for wastewaters from coffee plantations.  The Chairman picked me and two of my associates at that time for good measure to constitute a team.

We set out in an Ambassador taxi, the four of us in the month of July to visit several coffee estates, large and small.  Two large estates were the focus of our attention The Coffeeland Company Ltd. (CCL) estate in Sakleshpur, Hassan District and the Kelagur Coffee and Tea estates in Chikmagalur District.  The visit to the latter Estate was facilitated courtesy Mr. Peter Mathias, Managing partner of the Estate and brother of my dear friend and batchmate in IIT, Paul Mathias.   Paul went on to get his PhD in hardcore Chemical Engineering from MIT, USA, while I went to Vanderbilt to specialize in the slightly less demanding subject of Wastewater treatment.  The Kelagur Estate has come a long way since that time, when it was only about 300 odd Acres in extent.

http://www.kelagurmathias.com/index.html

The Managing Director of CCL had made arrangements for our stay at the historic century old Munzerabad Club in Sakleshpur ( estd. 1893).  Leaving Bangalore, just after lunch, we planned to reach Sakleshpur by 2000 hrs. in good time for a sundowner and made to order dinner by the celebrated cooks at the club :  but that was not to be.

Less than halfway to our destination, the trusty Ambassador developed serious transmission trouble which grounded the car at a hick town called Yediyur ( no connection to our own dear ex Chief Minister Yediyurappa) on NH 48, about 100 KM from Bangalore. It took the whole of 2 hours to set right the blasted thing, as we amused ourselves mingling with the local cattle milling around aimlessly in that dusty, godforsaken town.  With dusk falling, we rebooted the car and were off towards Hassan and Sakleshpur, in fast enveloping darkness.

At Hassan, a short stop to pick up the famed Hassan “Sauthe” (Cucumber), the fruit full of flesh, sweet and tender.  Reached the Munzerabad club around ten o’clock in the night, to wake up the sleeping caretaker and the cooks to cater to the dire needs of thirsty and hungry travel weary guests.

The next morning we were off to the Kelagur Estate in a village called Javali, through twisting, winding narrow lanes via Mudigere and Kottigehara, on bumpy, muddy and slushy tracks, a hallmark of Karnataka roads anywhere at any time of the year, and more so in the monsoon months.  We gained our destination after nearly three hours of tortuous but pleasant drive cutting through coffee estates and stretches of forest land, a distance of mere 50 KM.

At Kelagur, we were shown around the vast estate in their Jeep, the terrain rendered soft and slushy due to incessant rains, and fit only for all wheel drive vehicles.  Fresh water from a natural spring on the estate was harvested by means of a check dam, providing sufficient irrigation for the plantation year round : there was a tea factory on the estate and a coffee pulping machine, although idle at this time of the year.  Arabica coffee ( the superior variety) is harvested between November to December, while Robusta ripens a little later from January to March.  We had to be content therefore with a discourse on the coffee bean production process rather than a practical demonstration : but then the production process itself is quite simple, post the harvesting of berries. The true art and science in the production of coffee lies in proper management of the plantation, prevention and control of various pests, management of irrigation at the right times of the year, pruning, harvesting, management of shade trees so essential for retaining moisture in the soil, controlling soil temperature etc.  In the peak harvest season, attracting skilled labour becomes the most challenging task, since demand is high in all the estates across the three major coffee growing districts in Karnataka – Coorg, Chikmagalur and Hassan.

THE ESTATES

By Coffee Board estimates, there were nearly 38,000 small growers in Karnataka with holdings of 10 Hectares or less, accounting for nearly 55 % of coffee production in the state, and in absolute terms contributing 85,000 MT of clean coffee to the pool.  Robusta coffee was predominantly grown in these smaller estates, being the easier crop to manage with lesser inputs of skills, men and materiel.  The total production of Arabica and Robusta in that year in Karnataka was estimated to be around 160,000 MT, from a total planted area of  around 155,000 Hectares.  The larges estates, ranging from 200 Acres and over were chiefly in the hands of corporates and a few big family owned enterprises.

THE WASTEWATER

It was estimated that during the peak coffee pulping season between December to March ( which unfortunately coincides with the dry season in this part of India ), approx. 100,000 cum of day of coffee pulping wastewater would be generated.  Typically these discharges find their way into dry or drying rivulets and streams, carrying  with them immense pollution potential, without the mitigating effect of dilution waters in the water courses, and posing a real threat to drinking water sources of towns and cities downstream.

At an average  BOD ( Biochemical Oxygen Demand) level of 3,000 mg/L, approx. 300 MT of BOD would be released into the environment every day.  To put the numbers in perspective, that is the equivalent of the pollution potential from untreated sewage discharged by a city like Bangalore of that day with a population of 5 Million. : only about 3 times over.  I wonder now if somebody in the Coffee Board even read my report : the situation on the ground is not much better now from  reports I read in the newspapers.

THE TREATMENT

All things considered ( I was a great fan and avid listener of a talk show by that name on National Public Radio – NPR when I was a student in the USA for its brilliant and objective analysis and presentation of news and events of topical interest), I recommended to the Coffee Board treatment plants of modular design to cater to 10, 20, 40 and 80 KLD of wastewater to suit various users.  Basic details on the raw wastewater quantity and quality were furnished by scientists from the Central Coffee Research Institute – CCRI at Balehonnur, who also joined us during our study tour.  I also worked out preliminary details for a typical 40 KLD modular treatment plant.  In my recommendations were two alternative routes for treatment :

1. Upflow filter followed by activated sludge aerobic treatment
2. Anaerobic lagoon followed by activated sludge aerobic treatment

Design flow                       : 40 KLD 

BOD in wastewater           : 3000 mg/L

Treated water BOD            : 100 mg/L

Total Cost ( upflow filter)   : Rs. 925,000

Total cost ( An. Lagoon)    : Rs. 775,000

Chemicals                        : Rs. 10,000 per season

Power                              : Rs. 15,000 per season

Area occupied                   : 350 sqm ( Upflow filter )

                                          : 600 sqm ) An. Lagoon

The operation of the plant under both alternatives was by design kept fairly simple.  Finally, it was recommended that the Coffee Board set up demonstration plants based on the two alternatives to encourage and convince the planters to invest money in protection of their own environment and that of their neighbours and population at large downstream.

I have grave doubts if any of these recommendations have seen the light of day.  I only read in the newspapers and reports of the Pollution Control Board that Anaerobic lagoons are in place.  Their efficacy and treatment efficiency does bear further study.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                      January 02, 2012

PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT TREATMENT

Statistics on Palm oil consumption in India is truly staggering : India is the second largest consumer of edible oils in the world after China, and consumes nearly 17 % of the world palm oil production.  It is also the largest importer of palm oil, accounting for 44 % of world imports !

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-others/tp-banking-on-agribiz/article2644516.ece

Persistent attempts by the Government to increase acreage under oil palm cultivation, processing and domestic production of palm oil have met with little success : I am not surprised given the quality, competence and dedication or vision of the Politicians and their Babus in recent times, whose main focus is on politics, and petty politicking on every conceivable issue and non issue - Development of the Nation and welfare of the citizens be damned.  I shudder to think of the fate of the Green revolution of Dr. M.S Swaminathan and the White revolution of Dr.V. Kurien of the 60's, if these ideas were to be conceived in the India of today.

Here is an interesting story of a Palm oil Mill and its Effluent treatment, set in the 90's in Karnataka, avaricious Babus already beginning to rule the roost, busy lining their pockets for many a rainy day I presume.

49. PALM OIL MILL EFFLUENT (POME) TREATMENT

I forget now how it was that Mr. V K Abraham, Executive Director of Karnataka Oswal Oil palms Limited ( KOOL ) zeroed in on me to be their consultant to design the Wastewater treatment facilities for their upcoming Palm oil mill in Shimoga District in Karnataka.  In the year 1992, KOOL was promoted as a joint venture project of the Oswal group of Punjab ( Oswal woolen mills, Oswal Foods, Oswal Sugars etc.) and the Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corporation         ( KSIIDC).

When Mr. Abraham put up my proposal for consultancy services to the KSIIDC for approval, the decision making authority there, a high ranking officer rejected my proposal on the flimsy grounds that he did not like the looks of our Company Letterhead !!!  I later came to know from a General Manager of Kissan ( ketchup, jams) that this @S#$O&B  used to demand a fee from people seeking an appointment with him even on matters of normal and routine official business.  Talk about probity in public service in such high offices !  This same uncouth lout on retirement from Govt. service was a middleman to a leading real estate developer from the North, seeking to set up a huge township right on the banks of the T G Halli reservoir, a drinking water source at that time to the City of Bangalore.  Selling his soul to make a fast buck was this creature’s specialty.  Thankfully this project was summarily shot down by saner counsel in the Government at that time.

The KOOL consultancy assignment was finally awarded to Kirloskar Consultants Pvt. Ltd. presumably on the basis of their better looking Letterhead, at a much higher, inflated fee.  Kirloskar Consultants promptly subcontracted to me the entire assignment of designing and engineering the KOOL wastewater treatment plant.

The palm oil mill was the first of its kind in India.  There was no previous knowledge or experience of this kind of wastewater to fall back upon.  And in the age before internet and google, I found some relevant literature on this subject in the British Council Library, then situated on St. Marks’ Road, above Koshys’ Restaurant, famous for its thickly sliced buttered toast and coffee ( Koshy’s I mean).

I had to do a detailed study of the palm oil processing process right from the time of harvesting of the Fresh Fruit Bunches ( FFB), right through  the process of sterilisation- stripping- pressing - clarification – depericarping- nut cracking- hydrocyclone etc.  Material and water balance for the process had to be meticulously worked out for Indian conditions.   Finally the treatment plant design was presented and accepted by KOOL, and implemented on site.

The BOD ( Biochemical Oxygen Demand)  of the wastewater is very high at around 20,000- 30,000 mg/L, contributed in the main by Triglycerides, Mono- and Diglycerides, palmitic acid, tocopherols, carotene (which imparts the characteristic red colour to crude palm oil ) phospholipids, carbohydrates, sterols, alcohols etc., all fairly easily biodegradable.  I proposed a two stage anaerobic lagoon treatment followed by a two stage aerobic treatment to reduce the BOD to below acceptable limits.  The presence of beneficient enzymes such as Lypases and Lypoxygenases was also in favour of proposing the two stage anaerobic treatment in the first instance.

Finally, land disposal of the treated water was recommended on the oil palm plantation itself for economic return from use of nutrients present in the treated water, with judicious application and irrigation rates to avoid ground water Nitrate accretions.

The technical paper on the first palm oil wastewater treatment plant in India was published later in the Indian Oil Palm Journal Vol 3, No. 13 May – June 1993.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                    December 25, 2011

P.S :  I came to know much later that both Mr. Abhey Kumar Oswal and Mr. V K Abraham were well known to my father, K S Seshadri, a doyen of the edible oil industry after 45 years of hard and pioneering work in the field : an oil technologist from the VJTI, Bombay, he had humble beginnings as a lab chemist in the Bombay Oil Industries ( now called Marico ) where he first formulated Saffola. He later went on to set up scores of edible oil plants and refineries all over India, and finally set up and operated his own solvent extraction and refinery unit in Dharwad, Karnataka : he died in harness on December 12, 1992 at the age of 72. – R.I P.

TREATMENT PLANT FOR FOOD AND BEVERAGES INDUSTRY

Gone are the days when life was simple, and the choices you had to make to run your life were few indeed.

- For travel, one either walked or took the bullock cart : We now have to choose between a two wheeler, three wheeler, four wheeler, bus, train, metro or an aeroplane.

- A meal consisted of anna , saaru, Mosaru : We now have a choice of exotic cuisines ranging from Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Andhra ( Andhra Chinese, Andhra Punjabi, Andhra continental ) Chettinad,  Kerala, Punjabi, Bengali, Italian, Spanish, and of course the All American  Pizza, burger and the Colonel's chicken

- Guests to home were offered buttermilk or coffee/ tea. We now have a surfeit of beverages on offer : A variety of packaged fruit juices, High and Lo calorie soft drinks, Lassi in various avatars, flavoured milk concoctions,  Green tea, Jasmine tea,  etc. ( aptly bundled under the name infinitea), and a choice of other potent brews prescribed by Dr. Mallya.

I had to face one such situation some time back in a training session.  I confess for once, I was spoilt for choice.

48. TREATMENT PLANT FOR FOOD AND BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES

About 20 yeas ago, The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board ( KSPCB) with financial aid and technical support from DANIDA ( The Danish Govt. Aid Agency)  set up the Environmental Training Institute ( ETI ), operating out of a small rented premises on Wheeler Road in Cox Town, Bangalore.  The mandate of the ETI was to spread Environmental awareness among the general populace and also impart specialized training for industry representatives in various aspects of preserving and enhancing the Environment, as envisaged in the Water ( Prevention and Control of Pollution ) Act, 1974 and the Environment ( Protection) Act, 1986.  DANIDA was also instrumental in putting together the training materials in the form of a dossier for each specialized topic, which was then distributed to the PCB’s of the four Southern states.  A novel overhead projector was also gifted to ETI by DANIDA, which could project from printed material on plain paper directly on to the screen : no need for fussy acetate flimsies !

I was one of the Resource persons selected by KSPCB and ETI to conduct 2 day interactive training sessions on Industrial Wastewater Treatment for small batches of industry representatives in various towns of Karnataka. 

DANIDA also organized a training session for us Trainers over a three day residential program : the venue was a pleasant resort called Greenacres on Bellary Road, near the new Bangalore International Airport.  Carstens Bronsted was the expert deputed by DANIDA to train us.  Carstens’ program was not on the contents of the training material, but on matters of effective communication, interactive and participative training, timing and pacing of the training,  and about attention spans of trainees, case studies during class hours and assignments for after hours,  and how to keeping trainees awake and regaled during post noon sessions after lunch.  The training under the Master was thoroughly enjoyable and I practice many of his teachings and precepts to this day.

On behalf of the ETI, now very ambitiously rechristened the Environment Management and Policy Research Institute ( EMPRI), I have conducted several training sessions on Industrial Wastewater Treatment.  At the EMPRI’s vast new green campus in Peenya, I have also conducted the two day training program for a fresh batch of KSPCB officer recruits.  Alas, my mandate was only to train them on technical matters pertaining to wastewater treatment and not on ethical and moral conduct of Government business.

The EMPRI once requested me to conduct a training session on Wastewater treatment in the Food and Beverages industry.  It left me scratching my head for a very very long time : the list of food and beverage industry wastewater treatment addressed by me during my career by that time was long indeed :

-     Bakery  ( Modern Bread)

-          Biscuits ( Sunfeast )

-          Breweries ( UB, Sab Miller )

-          Coffee pulping in coffee estates ( Several)

-          Confectionery and Chocolates ( NP Confectionery)

-          Corn processing ( Mysore )

-          Dairies and milk chilling centers ( Several all over India )

-          Distilleries  (Several )

-          Edible oil refineries ( KLN, Siddaganga, etc.)

-          Egg processing ( Ovobel )

-          Fish processing ( Britannia )

-          Flour mills ( Big four - Bangalore )

-          Fruit & Vegetable canneries ( IQF )

-          Instant coffee/ tea plants  ( Brooke Bond, Lipton )

-          Jams, squashes, ketchup ( Kissan, Hindustan Unilever))

-          Mushrooms ( Hindustan Lever )

-          Packaged foods (ITC )

-          Palm oil mill effluent ( Karnataka Oswal Oilpalms Ltd.))

-          Poultry processing / abettoirs ( Godrej )

-          Soda pop ( Aerated soft drinks – Thums up, Coke)

-          Starch and sago from tapioca ( Several in Salem Dt.)

-          Sugar plants ( Several in Maharashtra, Karnataka)

Etc.

Given this vast diversity of wastewaters and the treatment schemes involved, I confess, for the first time I took the easy way out and doubtless bored my audience with generalities of treatment. 

Lunch break came as a Godsend for all, when we were in turn treated to some good food and beverages by EMPRI.

Dr. Ananth S Kodavasal                                                                 December 25, 2011