Creekside Soils, a municipal composting facility run by the city of Hutchinson, recently commissioned a new Covered Aerated Static Pile composting facility to increase capacity and processing efficiency of its food waste diversion and composting program. Creekside Soils is an enterprise fund for the City of Hutchinson, MN. The City has operated a city-wide curbside Source-Separated Organics Materials (SSOM) diversion program since 2001, making it one of the oldest SSOM diversion programs in Minnesota.
The city鈥檚 composting process previously used a 16 container in-vessel system. The main goal for the new CASP composting system was to update the 24 year old in-vessel system (also provided by GMT), which was in need of refurbishment. The CASP composting system from GMT was selected after a competitive RFP process. 鈥淭he main goal for the new CASP composting system was simply to update a now antiquated in-vessel system we started with 20+ years ago,鈥� said Andy Kosek, General Manager of Creekside Soils. 鈥淭he in-vessel system was effective but the vessels, the air system and the control software were starting to show their age, and wear. When exploring options for a new system, cost and operational efficiency were the two main focal points, the GMT CASP system checked all the boxes.鈥�
GMT designed and commissioned a 6 zone below grade aeration system per the RFP specification. Each zone has an individual blower that is automatically controlled by GMT’s “WebMACs” control system, using a data probe inserted into each pile. 鈥淕MT staff were very responsive and accommodating to our needs,鈥� said Kosek. 鈥淔rom the initial design, to system component delivery and ultimately system commissioning, everything went as smoothly as one could expect. We were venturing into uncharted waters transitioning from an in-vessel system to an ASP system, we really didn鈥檛 know how the ASP system would perform not having any previous hands-on experience with one. After a couple days of Peter Haun being on site for commissioning, only very minor changes were needed to be made to the control settings, it was like the system was 鈥渙ut of the box鈥� ready.鈥�
The CASP system allows Creekside Soils to produce high quality compost with minimal operational demand by utilizing state of the art temperature control feedback, to keep pile temperatures at the setpoint to maintain optimal composting conditions at all times. Additionally, the below-grade aeration floor installed requires minimal operational interference between batches, allowing the operators to quickly load and unload batches without any adjustment to equipment. The facility was designed and positioned in a manner to allow the system to be expanded to 3,000 tons per year at a later date. 鈥淣ot that I ever doubted the system鈥檚 performance, but I am very pleased with how the system controls are set and able to hold temps,鈥� said Kosek. 鈥淚t honestly floors me how well it is able to maintain 鈥渇lat line鈥� temperatures within the different regime set points.鈥�