Treatment of Winery Wastes by Aerated Lagoon,
Activated Sludge, and Rotating Biological Contactor
S. A. LABELLA, Project Manager
I.H. THAKER, Project Engineer
Lozier Engineers, Inc.
Rochester, New York
J.E. TEHAN, Plant Engineer
Gold Seal Vineyards, Inc.
Hammondsport, New York
INTRODUCTION
Industrial waste treatment facilities are designed on some correlation between
operational variables and process performance (1,2). This is necessary because of the
various waste characteristics that are encountered and the unknown composition of the
wastewaters. To put any design on technically sound reliable basis, engineers have to
investigate and evaluate feasible treatment alternatives to collect the required technical
information to make a sound decision. This work emphasizes these facts.
Pilot studies were undertaken to evaluate alternative approaches that could offer
process performance and economic considerations. Three biological processes studies were
aerated lagoon.activated sludge process, and rotating biological contactors, or "RBC". The
overall objective of the investigation was to develop a treatment process for winery wastes
to obtain design parameters and to evaluate its technical, engineering, and economic
feasibility. Based on these studies the RBC process was found to be the process of choice for
a full scale design due to its technical advantages, simplicity and flexibility of operation, low
maintenance requirements, and economics in cost.
The RBC treatment system proposed and designed to treat 0.4 MGD of winery wastes
flow has been approved by the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (3). The treatment facility for Gold Seal Vineyards, Inc., Hammondsport,
New York, is presently under construction.
The treatment facility is anticipated to achieve 90 to 95% BOD5 removal to meet the
high water quality standards of the receiving lake.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Literature search indicates that treatment systems applied to winery wastes range from
low rate processes such as stabilization ponds, extended aeration ponds to high rate
activated sludge process (4,5,6). It has been shown in laboratory studies and full scale
treatment operations that winery wastes are amenable to biological treatment systems.
However, design parameters available from previous works are very limited and they do
vary as per treatment need and discharge requirements of a specific winery waste, hence,
cannot be successfully incorporated with confidence in the design of a waste treatment
system for a particular winery.
References available pertaining to the treatment of winery wastes are very limited and
to the author's knowledge no such reference reveals the application of the RBC process to
winery wastewaters. Although current literature on RBC process indicates that it has been
applied with some degree of success to certain industrial wastes with varying strength and
volume (7,8,9,10). A number of references are available from which one can learn about
RBC process, its theory, technical advantages, and comparison with other biological
treatment processes (11,12,13,14,15).
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