For years this company received a steady supply of bulk material directly from the city's wastewater treatment facility across the river. KB Compost treats the material by combining it with sawdust to produce soil conditioner. Over the course of several years, however, this process began to take its toll on both the company and the facility itself. The 15-acre plant has six holding wells with a combined 450,000-gallon capacity in de-watering 70 million gallons of sludge, or transforming 50,000 wet tons, into compost each year. So while the process is completely contained, and the air itself is treated within the facility, there were still a number of impacts being felt due to the sheer mass of material being handled. First, a significant amount of ammonia and water were getting into the building's beams, thereby corroding them, which meant that significant infrastructure investments needed to be made. Secondly, the only cost the company had incurred for the sawdust was transportation to its facility. However, this dynamic changed when mills began to charge for sawdust--and price have increased significantly in recent years. For a plant that …