Formation Evaluation, Economic and Environmental Assessment for the Slurry Injection for Biosolids Management in the City of Houston

Abstract

A strong economy, industrial base, and low cost of living have led to a significant rise in population in the Greater Houston Metropolitan area of Texas, and with it, an increase in production of sewage and biosolids wastes. In the Houston area, sewage is treated with a combination of anaerobic digestion and lime stabilization to create biosolids which are then pelletized into fertilizer, composted, landfilled, or land applied. The Slurry Injection technique is an alternative treatment and disposal method, that can replace much of the capital costs associated with maintaining and expanding the wastewater treatment infrastructure in Houston at significantly lower capital cost. This technique utilizes the principles of Drill Cutting Injection which has been implemented in petroleum industry since mid 1980s for oil and gas waste management. A biosolids slurry injection facility of sufficient capacity to dispose of all the biosolids currently produced by the city of Houston could be installed for less than 1/10 of the nearly $526 million in capital currently budgeted by the city to expand the current system under the current rolling 5-year plan. A substantial reduction in greenhouse gases is achieved as well, by using the slurry injection technology as the Carbon Dioxide and Methane (which are prominenet greenhouse gases) produced by biosolids degradation is completely sequestered under deep geological formation and along with it the emissions produced during dewatering and transportation of biosolids is also eliminated. The City of Los Angeles’ Terminal Island Waste Water Treatment Plant facility has deployed the slurry injection technology since 2010. It currently disposes of approximately 20% of biosolids of the city of Los Angeles. This paper describes the economic and environmental aspects related to biosolids management and the formation evaluation carried out to inject the bioslurry in greater Houston. The study includes both the economics of the surface construction requirements as well as the science behind the subsurface strata evaluation for containment assurance. For the subsurface aspects, a geomechanical and stress analysis is performed on two different formations (the Frio and the Vicksburg). A significant confining layer is present above and below our targeted injection zones, which restrict and assure the injected waste remains contained. Also, hydraulic fracture simulation and analysis provides an assurance and the waste containment within the engineered subsurface strata/formation for permanent storage.