Jun 26 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Frank Nelson Santa Barbara News-Press, Calif.

Santa Barbara produces more than 8 million gallons of wastewater and sewage every day -- 80 gallons-plus per person. After treatment, about 20 percent of the liquid is used for irrigation and the remainder is flushed out to sea, while each year about 11,000 tons of leftover organic material is trucked to a composting facility in Kern County.

Treating waste is always an issue for municipal minds, and the bigger the city, the more money and other resources are devoted to treatment and disposal.

But while many people see waste disposal as a problem, Santa Barbara's James Smallwood sees it as an opportunity for recycling on a grand scale, in the process unlocking hidden energy and water resources.

"What we consider as unusable waste, and pay to have it hauled away or discharged into the ocean, can now provide us with clean water and natural gas to cook our food and fuel our vehicles," he says.

According to Mr. Smallwood, Los Angeles spends $15 million each year trucking residual waste to a Kern County landfill. "Sewage is not a problem we should pay to haul away and waste," he says. "It's renewable energy we need to capture and use."

To help make that a reality, Mr. Smallwood recently launched a new business, Natural Water Systems -- Environmental Technology Services, which he believes can save water for communities like Santa Barbara and at the same time produce energy.

Mr. Smallwood, who has long been in the business of selling organic fertilizer and water filtration equipment, now represents four companies that offer different methods for the treatment and recycling of commercial, industrial, farming and human waste.

He describes Natural Water Systems as an umbrella company for the other four technologies and services: Powell Water Systems, based in Colorado; Xtreme Screens, out of Texas; CJI Process Systems, from near Los Angeles; and Micro Media Filtration, in Rancho Santa Margarita.

"Think of it as one-stop shopping for wastewater processing," says Mr.

Smallwood, who graduated from UCSB with a degree in sociology in 1980 and went on to complete his master's at the Pacifica Graduate Institute. "I wanted a range of equipment and services to address every need for commercial and municipal plants."

Powell Water Systems uses a technique called electrocoagulation, in which electrical charges pass through wastewater as it flows over iron slats, causing water molecules to "drop" contaminants that have bonded to them. The solids can then be filtered and removed without the use of chemicals.

Mr. Smallwood says this technology can even be used to treat nuclear wastewater and toxic waste sites, plus municipal and industrial wastewater containing cyanide, anthrax, pesticides, prescription drugs and heavy metals.

Xtreme Screens specializes in the speedy cleaning of digesters at wastewater treatment plants, dairies and pig farms, while CJI builds and installs steel and fiberglass tanks and piping for commercial and municipal customers.

Micro Media builds filtration equipment that first reduces the overwhelming water content in sewage and other waste and then treats the water with ozone, leaving it safe for irrigation. Separated solids are then heated to 1,300 degrees, a process that releases natural gas, and all that remains from each ton of solids is about 10 pounds of carbon-rich material.

Mr. Smallwood says a 6-foot-by-6-foot treatment bed can treat 1 million gallons of sewage per day. So, several such units could handle the load in Santa Barbara, which Mr. Smallwood says would generate enough natural gas every day to meet the cooking and heating needs of 300 homes for a month.

The natural gas, which may be captured and stored as either a liquid or gas, can also be used to power buses or fleets of other vehicles.

Mr. Smallwood says Micro Media's ozone process, which has been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, has the benefit of killing all pathogens, bacteria, viruses and drug traces found in the water and solids.

He says a 7-million-gallon plant is being installed in Los Angeles. The technology has also been adapted to a dairy farm outside Los Angeles and a winery in Napa where the same process can help recycle grape waste.

Mr. Smallwood is hoping to persuade Santa Barbara, Goleta and the county to share one of these treatment and gasification facilities, and he says a recent decision by Kern County to stop receiving any more treated waste for the landfill may encourage some municipal rethinking.