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One of the ongoing concerns of municipalities everywhere is how best to treat and manage wastewater and wastewater solids. Many have chosen to treat biosolids in a process called alkaline stabilization, which involves addition of quicklime to raise pH levels to make them less acidic, and then pass them on for use as agricultural liming amendment.

This option is not without controversy, however, which is why Dalhousie researcher Gordon Price and his team are leading a national research project seeking to answer important questions about this process.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions about the safety and effectiveness of using biosolids from the municipal wastewater treatment system in agriculture: how do organic chemicals break down and change as they move through the system?” says Dr. Price, the Innovative Waste Management Research Chair in the Faculty of Agriculture’s Department of Engineering. “My project is trying to get some answers for regulators and for end users.”

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