NEW Technology via Patented Design
PondLift is indeed new technology, performing aeration via floating equipment. Yet, “Floating Equipment” has been around for decades, and has not always been so successful.
In the past, some manufacturers set out to service the domestic wastewater treatment market. Their “floating” equipment was purposely designed to meet coaching from domestic wastewater treatment operators. The coaching was to not bring the bottom of the pond up to the surface. Domestic wastewater’s traditional operational goal is/was to provide an anaerobic zone within all of their ponds, so as to force denitrification to occur. The equipment worked poorly on domestic wastewater systems. And this same equipment was put on manure ponds, to try to mimic what traditionally happens at domestic wastewater treatment ponds. No, No, and NO! There are several reasons “NO” is reality, but we won’t go into these details. Instead, we simply go the correct route!
Contrary to the coaching, WISE technology purposely brings the bottom stuff to the top, to create a homogeneous pond which is conducive to aerobic bacteria activity, and harsh for anaerobic bacteria. Manure Ponds are rich in Nitrogen, and a responsible farmer wants to save as much of that Nitrogen as possible! Continuous aerobic activity helps assure Nitrogen is retained! The same activity can be provided at any pond, including domestic wastewater treatment systems. Putting the entire pond into aerobic activity eliminates odor and fully decomposes all wastes entering it. It also allows the pond contents to be exposed to the surface repeated times during the day, gaining exposure to sunlight and its ultraviolet exposure, which is deadly to many pathogens. An anaerobic zone doesn’t do this.
If denitrification is desired at Domestic Treatment sites, there are other much more effective and more cost effective ways, such as designed wetlands, to denitrify wastewater.
Yet, not ALL floating equipment manufacturers followed that coaching: Other “floating” machines attempted to do WISE technology, but with poor impeller/propeller designs, which tend to let stringy material wrap on them, requiring removal and extensive work to remove the tightly bound material.
There were many reasons that the equipment had to be removed from the pond, including regular maintenance , lubrication, etc. These machines were very big and bulky, and required heavy equipment to remove them from the pond, and reinstall them after cleaning/service. The wrapping and other issues caused poor performance in many installations. Poor performance often led to the equipment being abandoned after a few years.
The poor performance, high maintenance, and high energy costs of previous floating equipment gave similar results to methane digesters: They are simply abandoned after a few years of effort. Farmers found (and continue to find, with Methane Digesters) that it simply is not worth the effort, energy, and labor costs.
PondLift performs well because is is not simply a copy of some other equipment, which was a copy of something else.
Study of floating equipment’s aeration/circulation performance started over 8 years ago by PondLift developers. PondLift development started in earnest after Thanksgiving 2013. The Patent Pending design is a result of analyzing the successful parts of previous equipment, and analysis of alternative design to eliminate the problems of previous equipment. PondLift’s StinkSTOPpers and SSPs are the result of this intense design effort.
Methane Digestors are an alternative method for decomposing manure. It needs be stated that an internet search will often show many articles stating the installation of a methane digester at a farm, but will rarely offer an article that follows, reporting that the expensive digestor is now abandoned, due to the extra work required, the high level of maintenance, and the lack of profit they actually provide. If you are counting on a methane digestor to be profitable, you are likely going to suffer serious disappointment.