Ted Durfey describes the compost project as a biosolids truck unloads at the site.

Some of King County's biosolids are composted with hop residuals (leaves and vines), wood chips and pomace (apple and grape residue from the juicing process).

Composting provides a way to use farm residuals and further treat biosolids to meet Class A pathogen reduction standards.

Compost is screened to remove large wood chips, which will be used in the next batch of compost.

The compost will be applied in the fields to improve soils by increasing organic matter.

While we watch from the roadside, biosolids are applied to a recently harvested cornfield.

Hop 'cones' are the hop plant's flowers which grow in clusters on the vines.

At the end of the growing season, hops are harvested by a mechanical cutter and carried away by truck.

Back at the hop processing facility, vines travel by conveyor into the 'hop picker' where cones are carefully picked from the vines by specialized machinery.

Leftover leaves and vines are piled out back before being taken to the composting site.

We watch as hops are automatically spread by conveyor into the hop kiln for drying.

Hops lie 3 feet deep in the kiln. Heat from furnaces below rises through slats, allowing the hops to dry evenly.

The dried hops are cooled on the cement floor for 24 hours in order to reach consistant moisture content.

The hops are conveyed next door where they are compressed into 200 pound bales. Here, workers sew the bales.

The bales are loaded onto a truck and either taken to a processing plant where essential oils are extracted, or used 'whole' by brewers.

University of Washington researcher, Dr. Chuck Henry, describes a research project evaluating solar drying to produce a Class A biosolids.