Biological Treatability of Various  Air
Force Industrial Wastes
JAMES A. MUELLER, First Lieutenant
WALTER W. MELVIN, JR., Colonel
Regional Environmental Health Laboratory
United States Air Force
Kelly Air Force Base, Texas
INTRODUCTION
Complex industrial wastes produced by the Air Force result from various operations, including industrial maintenance in repair shops, plating shops, aircraft
paint stripping and cleaning, laundry and dry cleaning operations, and training
activities such as fire fighting training. In the past, these wastes received little
or no treatment. On 7 July 1966, Executive Order 11288 was issued. This order
requires that all wastes from Federal installations, except cooling water and fish
hatchery effluent, must receive secondary treatment or the equivalent.
For years the Air Force has applied secondary treatment to domestic wastes.
Since these treatment plants are already operative it is feasible economically to
utilize these existing facilities for industrial waste treatment. However, since
many of these wastes contain toxic substances, biodegradability studies should be
made prior to discharge of the industrial wastes into sanitary sewage systems.
These studies indicate the concentration of waste that will be toxic to biological
treatment systems and also the degree of treatment anticipated in these systems.
With afield study of existing domestic sewage treatment facilities at an Air Force
installation, laboratory biodegradability data is used to determine if these facilities can adequately treat the industrial wastes or if new facilities are necessary..
The following presentation will show studies conducted on three Air Force industrial wastes, the laboratory results obtained, and the proposed solutions for treatment of these wastes.
PAINT STRIPPING WASTE
The waste resulting from paint stripping T-38 aircraft can cause stream pollution problems if not properly treated. Problems due to this waste were identified at Vance AFB, Oklahoma early in 1966. At this time, paint stripping waste
was pumped at an uncontrolled rate from a 5, 000 gal storage pit through the
sanitary sewer line into the base sewage treatment plant. The plant operation
was disrupted because of the presence of obnoxious odors and a large number of
dead snails in the sludge recycle line. At this time, a fish kill occurred in the
receiving stream. Because of this, the feeding of the waste to the treatment
plant was discontinued and a contractor was hired to periodically pump out the pit
and dispose of the waste.
The paint remover (Table I) consists mainly of organic solvents and has an
extremely high theoretical COD, approximately 1, 500, 000 mg/1. The COD concentration of the waste is extremely high initially, but decreases with time as
more rinse water is used in the stripping operation.   Grab samples of this waste
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