Sludge had accumulated in a lagoon to the point where it was nearing compliance issues with a State regulatory agency. The producer needed to gain capacity back to prevent the lagoon from being dredged. Over the past 3 years, the lagoon had been treated very aggressively with other biologicals and the engineers were skeptical whether or not anymore sludge could be broken down.
Spectrum λ850 was added to the 3.5 million gallon lagoon at a rate of one gallon per 25,000 gallons of effluent in June. Maintenance doses were added monthly to insure progress.
Within three weeks, the lagoon turned a bright shade of red and started bubbling all over the surface. When the sludge grid sampling was done in November, employees deemed that there was adequate sludge reduction of nearly 10% to keep the lagoon in compliance and the treatment objectives were met.