Hollis Warren is a staunch believer in educating the public and pumpers. For his continuous efforts along those lines, Warren, 57, of Hollis Warren Inc., in Wyoming, Del., was named the 2009 On-Site Professional of the Year by the Delaware Technical and Community College.
Warren joined the National Association of Wastewater Transporters Inc. when it formed in 1986. He was instrumental in developing NAWT’s professional training programs and served three terms as president. Warren also worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on land treatment rules and participated on the Steering Committee for Decentralized Wastewater Treatment.
Closer to home, Warren is vice president of the Delaware Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association, represents pumpers on the board of directors, and heads the Bylaws Committee. He worked with Delaware Technical and Community College to establish the Environmental Training Center, which provides continuing education credits for industry professionals and instructs homeowners how to maintain their alternative treatment systems.
Warren found his niche as a pumper serving Delaware and Maryland customers. In response to diminishing disposal sites, he built Warren’s Wastewater Treatment Plant in 1995. The operation processes 100,000 gallons of grease trap waste per month and 3 to 4 million gallons of lime-stabilized septage per year.
Pumper invited Warren to talk about his career and share his beliefs on the state of the industry.
Pumper:
How did Hollis Warren Inc. get started?
Warren:
Dad (the elder Hollis Warren) pumped septic tanks when he began the business in 1960, but branched into pumping grease traps at auto and horse racing tracks and numerous restaurants. He land-applied the grease on our 150-acre farm. Our volume increased dramatically when the Kent County government mandated that grease traps be pumped monthly.
Pumper:
What motivated you to build a waste treatment facility?
Warren:
Regulators were banning land-applied raw septage and more and more treatment plants refused to accept it. A private facility was my only legal option.
Pumper:
What is the plant’s treatment train?
Warren:
The trucks discharge into a 1,000-gallon tank containing lime and water. The batch is mixed, then a pump sends it through a rotary screen to catch the trash. The liquid flows to a grit chamber where the solids settle out. From there, the water is pumped to a 7,000-gallon underground equalization tank and the alkaline level raised to 12 pH for two hours. We then transfer it to a 200,000-gallon above-ground holding tank and decant off the top. Lime stabilization kills odors, so we never cover the tank. We spray-irrigate 250,000 gallons per acre year-round on 30 acres.
A farmer rents the land to grow reed canary grass, a heavy nitrogen feeder, for his beef cattle. According to U.S. EPA 503 biosolids regulations, the grass can’t be cut for 30 days after an application. In the spring and fall, we inject the solids from the bottom of the holding tank into designated fields. All the fields have monitoring wells, and we must submit a nutrient plan showing that the nitrogen we put down is taken up by the crop. No runoff is allowed.
Pumper:
How did you become involved in a state land-application study?
Warren:
Steve Rohm, land-application coordinator from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, inspected our operation once a month. I asked him one day how much grease I could apply before it plugged the soil. He didn’t know because nobody had done a study. We decided right there to do one. Besides answering the clogging question, we wanted to see if grease could kill a crop and which crop.
The study ran from 1990 to 2000. Normally, we applied 5,000 gallons of grease per acre, worked it in, waited two weeks for it to dry a little, then repeated the process. For the study, we applied 80,000 gallons on 30 acres per year. The microbes ate it up, especially in warm weather. We learned that they assimilate grease year-round because winter temperatures rarely reach 32 degrees.
Another thing we learned is that grease breaks down into organic materials that enhance the soil’s ability to retain moisture. In dry spells, our corn crop yielded 10 bushels more per acre than land fertilized with chemicals.
Pumper:
What is your interpretation of the national trend to ban land application?
Warren:
We’ve done a poor job educating the public and offsetting media-induced hysteria. The public reads or hears about illegal dumping, sees pumper trucks in the fields and associates them with individuals who give the industry a black eye.
NAWT and the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association have done a good job educating those in the business, but they and state associations have done little to promote the environmental service waste haulers perform or to take that message into elementary schools. Kids visit municipal wastewater treatment plants, but are they ever bused to a pumping company or private treatment facility?
Pumper:
A new Florida law bans land-applied septage by 2016, and most of the state’s municipal plants won’t accept it. Do you anticipate that mindset affecting the entire country and in what ways?
Warren:
I believe it will affect the entire country, but I’m not sure how. In Florida, I expect operators with private treatment plants to raise disposal prices. Pumpers will pass the increase to customers and charge more per pump-out because they drive farther to unload. Certainly, illegal dumping will increase. The bad publicity will further tarnish our industry, adding fuel to replace septic systems with municipal sewers.
On the positive side, I see an opportunity for pumpers to build more private treatment facilities. They’ll probably have to form cooperatives because most one-truck operators don’t have the volume to support such a venture. Finding partners will be difficult because of our fragmented industry. Utilities, on the other hand, are big conglomerates that can easily wipe out mom-and-pop operations.
Pumper:
What has changed to improve the industry in Delaware?
Warren:
One of the biggest improvements is the creation of the Delaware Technical and Community College’s training center. In February 2007, the DNREC mandated that alternative systems must be inspected twice a year by certified service providers, but it also allows homeowners to do it if they pass Del-Tech’s inspection class. We often find homeowners enrolled in our continuing education classes to find answers to their onsite problems.
The second biggest improvement was the septic code requiring effluent filters in septic tanks. More than 10 years ago, Steve Rohm and I did a study on their effectiveness. We installed filters in our septic tanks and every week Steve sampled the effluent through a test port in the distribution box. My system had the heaviest usage and shock loads when 30 people arrived for holidays and family celebrations, yet the filter stopped 50 percent of solids from reaching the drainfield and lasted a year before we changed it. Our study proved that effluent filters do protect drainfields.
Hollis Warren may be reached at 302/284-9130 or htwarren430@aol.com.
