OSWEGO, NY – The Port City is making plans in case the county won’t accept its lime-stabilized sludge at the Bristol Hill Landfill in the future.
At Monday night’s meeting of the Administrative Services Committee, Mayor Randy Bateman recommended that Mike Riley, purchasing agent, be authorized to seek proposals for the transportation and disposal of sludge generated from the city’s two wastewater treatment plants as the county may deny disposal of lime-stabilized sludge at the Bristol Hill Landfill.
The committee sent the proposal to the full council for consideration.
Recently, the elevated ammonia levels at the landfill prompted city and county officials to consider a stopgap deal to swap leachate for sludge and a one-time reduced rate for landfill debris (for debris from the demolition of the house at West Bridge and Fifth streets).
“They (the county) received a greater benefit than we did. So we asked them for a longer time period (to make the city’s benefit a bit more equal). They didn’t like that idea,” Bateman said.
When water comes through the landfill (leachate) it is collected and trucked to the Fulton wastewater treatment plant where it was processed biologically.
According to the county, EPA informed Fulton that it cannot accept the leachate because the ammonia levels are so high.
However, the mayor added, the county notified the city they aren’t going to consider the deal at all now.
The county sent the city a letter notifying it that unless the city does something with the lime, “next year they will not be taking our sludge,” Bateman told the committee. “So this is permission for Mr. Riley to go seek other options; to continue stabilizing with lime, to not stabilize with lime or who else takes sludge.”
It doesn’t lock the city into anything, it’s just to see what’s out there, the mayor explained.
“I remember, years ago, we used to have a truck that hauled stuff from the treatment plant to the landfill,” Councilor Shawn Walker said. “What if we get a truck and haul it ourselves to a different landfill? Would it be cheaper?”
That’s one option that will be explored, the mayor noted.
In other action, the committee gave a favorable recommendation to three requests for travel.
Mike Dehm, police chief, requested approval to send four officers to a five-day police training in Rochester that pertains to Latent Print Processing Course – Level 1 on Feb. 14-18.
He also requested approval to send four officers to a 10-day police training in Rochester that pertains to Crime Scene and Evidence Technician Course on April 4-15.
Jeff McCrobie, fire chief, requested approval to send two firefighters to mandatory training.
The first would attend First Line Supervisor School in Fort Totten, NY, on Jan. 3 – 28.
The second would attend the training on Feb. 28 – March 25.
Deb Coad, city chamberlain, sought authorization to execute NYS Standard Accounting procedures as deemed necessary to obtain balanced accounting records for the year ending Dec. 31.
The procedures wouldn’t be executed prior to Dec. 31, she pointed out.
The committee sent the request to the full council for consideration.
Also receiving favorable recommendations from the committee were City Attorney Gay Williams’ requests for the mayor to sign the lease agreement with Oswego County Opportunities for use of rooms in Pontiac Terrace for purposes of the Senior Nutrition Program; and to sign the lease agreement with the Art Association of Oswego.
Both are renewals of the previous leases and contain the same terms and conditions, she noted.
Neal Smith, director of code enforcement and Mike Smith, DPW commissioner, requested to make budget transfers within their departments.
The committee gave a favorable recommendation to both.
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