Two major events in the summer of 2007 swiftly changed the focus of Forest Septic Tank Service in Des Moines, Iowa, a small, old-line traditional pumping company with two trucks and two drivers.
In July, the City of Des Moines passed the “25 percent rule,’’ requiring businesses that do commercial and institutional cooking to clean their grease traps and interceptors when they were one-quarter full. Forest Septic’s grease trap pumping exploded from 10 to 70 percent of the workload, requiring two new trucks and drivers running full time to answer the demand.
Also that summer, without warning, local Polk County authorities ended all permits for land application of septage. Jody Forest, who spread a million gallons of septic waste a year, drove straight to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and told supervisor Jim Stricker that he wanted to build a dewatering facility.
Stricker greeted the proposal with enthusiasm, as did the heads of four local health departments. In October 2007, the pumping company began engineering for the system. A year later, its fully operational Accurate Dewatering Service Inc. was featured in a presentation at the National Association of Wastewater Transporters Inc. Waste Treatment Symposium in Missouri.
In the course of a year, Iowa had its first privately owned septage dewatering facility up and running.
WANTED TO STAY SMALL
“I had every intention of keeping the business small,” says Forest, 48, who bought the company in 1986 when George Forest retired.
“Dad and his brother, Bill, were partners for more than 30 years. They each drove a pump truck and never had an employee.”
The company hired its first employee to drive the second 1975 Chevy C65 gasoline-powered vacuum truck with 1,500-gallon tank. For 10 years, the two men pumped septic tanks and car washes within 50 square miles of Des Moines. Penny Forest, Jody’s wife, was employed full time elsewhere, but did the company bookkeeping on weekends in their home office.
Jody Forest handles all the calls and dispatches the jobs. “Our customers have always spoken to the men in charge, and have many questions that Penny or our office helper can’t answer,” he says. “One of the most important lessons I learned from Dad is that no matter how behind or busy you are, a good businessman always takes time for the customer.” The Forests believe this personal touch and a quick response to emergencies have contributed to their success.
The business kept growing, and in 2003, Penny Forest started working full time in the office as a paid employee.
Government regulation has played a key role in Forest building different segments of the business. Early in 2008, the Iowa legislature passed a bill requiring owners of onsite systems with an open discharge to have a service agreement. As a result, Forest’s base of customers with maintenance contracts grew to more than 200.
NEW GREASE TRAP RULES
And Iowa’s new real estate time-of-sale inspection regulations go into effect this summer, requiring onsite systems to be inspected and have risers added before a property sale is completed.
Forest Septic has a 2004 TMX excavator pulled behind a 2007 Dodge Ram diesel and a 2006 Digger excavator pulled by a 2004 Ford F-250 diesel to do the job. Two certified employees handle all maintenance agreements and time-of-sale inspections.
The “25 percent rule’’ dramatically increased Forest Septic’s grease trap pumping work. Some of the company’s 300 customers include restaurants, taverns, schools, daycare centers, churches, nursing homes, bakeries, grocery stores, and caterers — and the number keeps growing.
To handle the volume of grease trap jobs, the couple bought a 2007 Freightliner with a 2,500-gallon aluminum tank from Advance Pump and Equipment in Peosta, Iowa. In early 2008, they bought a 2002 Sterling with a 4,000-gallon steel tank and 350-cfm Wallenstein pump. This February, they replaced the 2000-gallon Ford F-750 service truck with a beefier Peterbilt 330C with 3,600-gallon steel tank. Each added truck meant hiring another employee.
The company also has two 45-gallon Wee Vac units from Wee Engineer Inc. to reach access grease traps that can't be reached by its trucks.
The couple’s 22-year-old-son, Tyler, took over the grease hauling division. Trucks discharge at the Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority. The plant charges 3 cents per gallon for grease disposal, which it uses to make methane gas that it burns as fuel and sells.
The fees for septage disposal are another story, though. Haulers are charged $120 per 1,000 gallons for septage. So when Polk County banned land application, Forest knew he had to come up with a more cost-effective alternative to get rid of the septic waste.
Whether or not to pursue a dewatering solution depended heavily on how much the pumper would be charged to dispose of effluent from the process into the city sewer system. Forest had a septage sample taken, then asked the wastewater authority to establish the TSS and BOD levels in the water. They were minimal, and so was the annual discharge fee, enabling Forest to continue with the project.
DEWATERING EPIPHANY
The couple bought a 3.5-acre site across the street from the metro wastewater treatment plant, then Forest and Jerry Heckman, a retired farmer and friend, attended the 2007 NAWT Waste Treatment Symposium in Pennsylvania, where they met Therese Wheaton. Wheaton, of Crystal Environmental, is a consultant on how to maintain and optimize dewatering facilities, especially those handling septic and grease trap wastes.
“Seeing the dewatering process in action, talking to the people running the equipment, and meeting Therese lit my rocket,” says Forest, who hired Wheaton to design his system.
“She had real-world scenarios to show how the numbers shook out for other treatment facilities, including costs associated with capital ownership and processing septage,’’ he says. “Therese knew how to estimate how many gallons would be necessary to make my venture financially feasible. One million is usually the break-even point. We even discussed labor, maintenance, lime and polymers, and electrical considerations.”
Forest kept the DNR and county health departments apprised of his progress, and the agencies approved the forms without delay. Their letters of endorsement assured the couple’s banker that permits were forthcoming — and so was the loan.
“For the last 10 years, we had paid a farmer $30,000 to $40,000 a year to land-apply our septic waste,” Forest explains. “Showing this expense to our banker helped get the financing because it proved that Forest Septic alone could provide instant income to the facility. Yes, we’re open to other haulers, but we had no guarantee that they would come.”
The couple hired Heckman to run the dewatering facility. “The best advice I can give to pumpers considering building their own dewatering facilities is to find someone like Jerry,” says Forest. “He’s a fix-it man who can build and figure out anything.
LOWER DUMPING FEES
The couple also hired friend and concrete contractor John Shannon of Frontier Construction in Winterset, Iowa, to engineer the underground storage pits and additional concrete work. “We could not have done this without Jerry and John,” says Forest.
Accurate Dewatering Service is sized to process 40,000 gpd. Forest and three competitors dump at the facility, with their combined loads averaging 15,000 to 20,000 gpd. Forest charges $65 per 1,000 gallons for septage disposal. After going through a severe winter and the associated slowdown of work, Forest still paid all his expenses. Besides being a promising profit center, he believes that having the luxury of a disposal facility 24/7, rain or shine, is a benefit in itself.
“By opening the facility to other haulers, we hope to keep costs down so consumers will continue pumping their septic tanks when needed,” says Forest. “My other goal is to maintain a fair and level competitive marketplace for all the liquid waste haulers in the area.”
The dewatering equipment is located inside a 50- by 70-foot building. On the second day of operation, the couple invited personnel from the wastewater authority, Polk County regulators, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and regional U.S. Environmental Protection Agency office to check it out.
The receiving station can offload two trucks at a time into separate 3,000-gallon grit tanks. Heckman samples each load to ensure the contents are septage only, records a manifest and tests the pH level. After settling, septage flows through a Raptor septage acceptance plant with a fine screen from Lakeside Equipment Corp. With help from Lakeside, Forest and Heckman rebuilt the 47-inch, 1,200-gpm unit. They added a new NEMA 4 control panel. The pre-engineered plant removes plastics, hair, hygienic materials, and other debris.
Sludge is then discharged into two 25,000-gallon underground receiving tanks. Air drawn from the covered grit and storage tanks is blown into a biofilter (bed of wood chips) alongside the building for odor control.
Heckman adds lime to adjust the pH level in a storage tank before a Bornemann sludge pump sends a batch to the 30-cubic-yard stainless steel Detainer dewatering box from Atlantic Dewatering Services. It holds 14 tons and Heckman is processing three to four loads a week. The dewatering process uses the Polymaster polymer delivery system with Gatlin mixer from Neptune Chemical Pump Company Inc. He land-applies the cake on his farm.
Forest advises haulers considering a dewatering plant to attend a NAWT Waste Treatment Symposium and visit existing facilities. His door is open to anyone pumping a million or more gallons of septage per year.
LOOKING AHEAD
Forest Septic pumped 2 million gallons last year, and new accounts keep arriving. “I grew the business for the benefit of our customers,” says Forest. “We’ll hire one or two more employees this year just to pump grease traps and onsite systems for real estate sales.” If business at Accurate Dewatering accelerates, Forest will purchase a belt press. Meanwhile, the dewatering box is the most economical approach.
The couple recently accomplished a long-term business goal, providing full benefits to their employees. They pay 100 percent of health and dental insurance, and offer a 401(k) retirement plan, partially matching employee contributions.
This summer, they plan to build a six-bay shop near the treatment plant and perform their own equipment maintenance. They will heat the shop using waste oil pumped from a customer, and burn the waste oil from their trucks to heat the dewatering facility.
“Our family business went from dipping waste from outhouses with long oak-handled spoons and transporting it in 55-gallon drums on a flatbed truck to fancy vacuum trucks and dewatering septage,” says Forest. “It’s pretty amazing, and we couldn’t be more proud of what we have accomplished.”
