EA designed and permitted the Phase II compost facility at the Alpha Ridge Landfill in Howard County to serve the County’s green waste and food scrap programs, including site design, process design, structural design, and installation of compost equipment provided by the County’s equipment contractor Engineered Compost Systems. EA developed the compost facility design to meet Maryland’s regulations for compost facilities, which took effect on 1 January 2017, including capture of contact water. The design includes site access roads, feedstock receiving building, concrete bunkers for concrete curing with an aerated static pile composting system, secondary curing area, process piping, contact water for compost moisture management, electrical connections, stormwater managements features, and erosion and sediment controls. In addition to design phase services, EA provided bid-phase and construction-phase support. Substantial Completion for construction was issued in October 2018.
The constructed compost facility is an expansion of the Pilot Compost Facility (Phase I) at the Alpha Ridge Landfill, unveiled in 2013, which accepted yard waste, food scrap, and manure from several areas of the County, and produced compost and topsoil that were sold locally to residents and contractors and were used in County parks, street projects, and stormwater improvements. The success of the pilot encouraged the County Department of Public Works and the County Council, which funded the expanded facility. The Phase II Compost Facility allows processing of approximately half of the County’s curbside collected yard waste and residential food scrap, increasing the County’s compost production from approximately 3,000 cubic yards per batch to approximately 10,000 cubic yards per batch.
Learn more by reading our Environmental Insights post detailing the challenges and success of the project.
